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.