Snowy Owl

It is less than twenty degrees in Cape Anne the year the Snowy Owls erupted. The snow tumbles out of the sky and the wind buffets it into tornadoes of white flakes. In all of this, the male snowy owl sits atop a snag undaunted. I watch it, breathless, until some unknown signal causes it to take flight. It vanishes before my eyes as though it had melted into the very elements themselves, a phantom of the frigid winter.

c. Christina Baal 2015