Nearly all the barn owls
have starved this snowy winter

and the lone wildlife artist
is taking dead mice round;

he’s just had some picture
cards back from the printer,

but there are so few alive
above the flinty ground.

He tries to keep the
last ones from going

the same savage way
as their dead-silent allies;

in the elm’s hollow womb
it has stopped snowing,

and more might patrol
in the shrieking skies.

He dreams of entering
a safe barn in spring

seeing the adult
spread flat on the floor

four long-necked nestlings
shelter under wing,

he smiles, and closes
the battered door.