The Snow Owl

waited for me
at the center

of a frozen pond.
Beneath my feet

I could see the witless
gaze of frozen fish.

A low winter sun
razed the fields,

entrenched in snow
and the cold burden

of being alive
yet waiting.

The owl did not
spread its wings,

did not tap the ice
with a talon, only

watched me
equivocate between

praise and retreat,
its gold eyes

tarnishing me.

---

Amie Whittemore is the author of the poetry collection, Glass Harvest (Autumn House Press). Her poems have won multiple awards, including a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, and her poems and prose have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Nashville Review, Smartish Pace, Pleiades, and elsewhere. She is the Reviews Editor for Southern Indiana Review and teaches English at Middle Tennessee State University.