Into the Misty Vapor

Staring across the pasture,
I wonder at the rain sweeping up the mountain
And the fog laminating the forest in the distance,
Bending the view
So that the trees become bleary specters,
So that their green and gray spirits might come out to play and display,
A show that is free for the seeing, from this vantage.
 

A winding path leads me out,
Familiar to my step and eye
And yet new, wildly wet and blown
On this day of apparitions.
 
And then I see it, as it sees me,
In a frozen moment,
Both of us somewhat disbelieving,
Each struggling to make sense of this newly broken reality.
 
It is hunkered down low on the ground
A puddle of white and barred brown,
Wings braced, leaning into the driving gusts.
And then too suddenly it takes flight,
And so with it my eyes and heart,
Lifted to a new place
That I will willfully follow long after
The owl has disappeared over the tree line
And into the misty vapor.