Night owls bond under a violet sky

All day it had been one thing after another and I was keyed up and jittery. I’d had too much coffee and not enough sleep the night before. I couldn’t relax. I wanted to be entertained.

I wanted to be swept away by something, but didn’t know what.

I tried to curl up with a book, but couldn’t focus on the words on the page or follow the plot.

I turned on the television, surfed the channels for a few minutes and then turned it off again.

I sat down to the computer and then got back up.

Everyone else in the house had settled down for the day, everyone except me.

Finally, too restless to rest, I called my dogs, who trampled one anther trying to get to me first, fastened leashes to their collars and we stepped out into a soft rain.

Night was hanging heavy at the edge of the sky. All around us lights from the houses along the street glowed in the mist.

It was that time of day when the wild world, or the wildness in things that live in our world, awakens.

Walking in the rain delighted my silly dogs. They pulled me down the sidewalk toward the park, sniffing the ground as though they were tracking prey.

Suddenly, my dogs, pampered animals that sleep too much and always know exactly where their next meal will come from, were acting as though they were as feral and rangy as wolves.

They weren’t pets, they were hunters. They were on the prowl.

We skirted the park and walked down toward the duck pond. There were only a few other people on the paths and they were little more than shadows in the distance.

But it was getting darker so I turned toward home. Enough playing in the rain.

As I came around the conservatory and stepped down into the sunken garden, a large shadow passed over me. An owl swooped silently over my head and landed in the top of a tree overlooking the garden. Immediately, he was lost in the darkness.

But I knew he was there.

I stopped, staring into the branches of the tree, knowing that although I couldn’t see him, he was watching me as I stood exposed in the twilight.

The dogs, alerted by my interest, were uncharacteristically quiet, too. We all stood silent and still. We stood there a long time.

How often, I wondered, had that owl watched me walk the paths beneath him. What did he think of me and my foolish pets?

I thought he was magnificent.

I peered at the black silhouette of the tree hoping for one more glimpse.

Finally, giving up, I walked away. I’d only gone a few steps when I took one more look over my shoulder. A goodbye glance. And just as I did, the owl, offering a gracious grand finale, flew out of the sheltering branches of the tall tree, circled low over the conservatory and moved away, flying deeper into the park.

My breath caught in my throat.

It was dinner time. The owl had a meal to catch. He had business to attend to. The show was over.

The dogs led me home. I finished my chores for the night and went to bed.

That night I dreamed of great flying birds that soared and swept across a violet sky and dipped their wings in greeting to me as they passed.

And I was carried away.