Orchestra-in-the-Round
Out on the dock
we stand in the middle
of owl music
low bleating
monosyllabic succession
who-who-who-awwwah
that seems to echo
here, there.
No, over there.
Answers not echoes. Like
Greek choral singers
they throw out their own
variations for wind
to stretch over water
through darkness
over hills and longleaf pines,
over scratching salt grasses
accompanied by stringed cicadae,
tympani of splashes, squawking
horns of marsh hens.
Enter owls again.
Reverse of theatre-in-the-round,
orchestra surrounds us
even when we take the silver path
the moon makes back to shore;
even when we sit inside -
included in owl music.