A Barn, At Night

A Barn, At Night

The thing about becoming is that until you become, you haven’t. Whether you know it or not, you’re just waiting. To become.

And now it must be asked. What is it to become something?

Begin with talons. Switchblade obsidian, clutching ancient rafters. Feel the tips, piercing wood, old wood, stone-hard with the years.

And then, the dead cold night, the star-frosted sky, the creaking barn built by Amish men back when there was still timber standing on this land.

Now the barn at thirty below in a Minnesota winter and the wind is demon-cursing outside in the thin-mother moonlight, and in the frozen half-dark the hunger inside you – you, the would-be-barn-owl you -- hunger crawls around in your gut like a roadkill serpent, twisting, twisting, gnawing, piercing, whisper-shrieking, telling you in the language before words, that ice-age language: hunt, you bastard glacier-born-relic, hunt now. Hunt or die in the blind cold and never see the red-father sun rise, no never feel the life-touch of a fat-sun-father coming up, feather-warm, hot, hotter, sun of the living day, perfect sun.

So, you – the soon-barn-owl you – molten-gold eyes scanning, scanning the half-dark, dish-curve feather-ruff frames the eyes, the face, the twin curves scoop up every night sound, brings sound close, closer. And possible-barn-owl you – hidden ears strain to hear, yearn through the dark itself to hear, listening for that shift of tiny body, body burrowed down somewhere, that heat-holding form with the strange-small fast-beating heart, sleek hair rustling on straw, small paws grooming, whisker-twitching, that tiniest of tiny motions, that betrayal of where, where it is, where life is, where it lives, where it breaths moist breath, tiny heart pulsing, hot, wet, where it nestles down, tiny seed-full stomach, glassy bead eyes half-shut. You listen for that life. For. The. Life.

And when you hear it, at first you don’t believe it. Ever. You think you’re fooled. Happened before. Happens lots. Because when the want is such, the answer is mirage, seen and lost, lost and scorned. But it comes again. That one pulse. That motion that is not mistaken. That twitch that cannot be taken back. That near-silent surge of salt-sweet blood in hair-thin vein. Near-silent is enough. Just.

You lean from the rafter, all senses reaching, pulling on the thread of sound in the hay-barn dark. To hear. To mark. And mark you do. And the darkling barn narrows, cold space folds and flows into you, the barn-dark tells you all the truth there is to know. Night truth.

Talons on the rafter loosen, give way, legs push, great, silent opening of wings, wide but not too wide. Just enough to clear the beam. You lean, tip, and then release and fall, the delicious, perfect, weightless fall. Through the cold black and the almost-dark that cannot fool your eyes. Your eyes are cold open as you drop through the ice-barn air, the barn you know so well. Every stacked bale. Every clod of frozen dirt. Every hanging lace of dusted spider’s web and turn of rope and each and every post and beam. You’ve hunted here for all the winters, summers, winters. Oh you know the barn, the good barn, the barn as much yourself as your wing and beak and claw. You know to flex just so, to tip just here, to miss the beam that is part of you, to skirt the wall and bale that are you as well, to strike true in the good, dark barn.

Falling through stinging wind and space now, your eyes pull the night-world up to you, bring the bales close, close, closer, every blade of dried grass shining in the gloom, each stem alight and burning with a cool and amber light inside, each post a sign to guide your falling. And tucked in by the bale, just at the edge, the pulsing, the downy grey hair, naked tail, thin-skin ears, wet nose, softly beating heart, so small so small the heart but blood-hot in its perfect rhythm. Closer still, the glassy beads of half-closed eyes, the dreaming eyes that do not see the barn owl you would be. Coming on. Coming on. Becoming.