"Unreachable" by Megan Hanlon

The great horned owl is depressed. Those dark feathers over his amber eyes may give him an aura of stern anger, but I know his double-whoos are thick with sadness. Sitting high on an abandoned limb, blending into the grays and browns of the leafless trees that sway together beyond my backyard, he calls out every night. I can hear him as I'm settling into my own warm bed, alone save for the quiet dog at my feet. Whoo-whoo, he cries, as the moon rises full and happy. 

The owl aches to be understood. He longs for a friend to share his meaty meals and the twiggy nest he padded with pine straw for comfort. A downy ear to hear his thoughts. Another being who knows what it's like to feel so solitary in a sky full of air. 

The owl used to keep tentative company with a gray mouse. Its pink nose twitched with anxiety whenever the owl pressed the side of his feathery face against it, listening to its heartbeat and sighing silently. The mouse misunderstood, and skittered away to hide beneath a rotted log. 

For a while, another great horned owl in the woods had occasionally responded to his pleas. Those nights I held my breath in the dark and listened for the reassuring, throaty voice that let my owl know he didn’t suffer alone. I hear you, but I don’t want to be near you, it said, but gave no explanation for its distance. Before long, the replies fell silent, and now his mournful appeals go unanswered. 

His melancholy vibrates deep in my bones. I am well-worn with sitting alone in the dark, hearing far-off trains wail, silently soothing others but not yourself. I understand his emptiness. Last night, the owl shook me awake at moon o'clock, his hoots so sorrowful I thought one of my children had awoken from a bad dream and needed the comfort of my embrace. I rose and listened, and heard only contented breathing in still rooms.

No one soothes the owl’s sobs. No one comes to ease whatever loss he grieves. His heavy and heartsick whoo-whoos ring out in the cold woods, night after night. 

Next to my house, in a small Japanese maple tree forsaken of leaves, a lonely robin sits – wishing she were an owl.  

Megan Hanlon is a podcast producer who sometimes writes. Her words have appeared in The Forge, Gordon Square Review, Reckon Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, Variant Literature, Cowboy Jamboree, and more. Her blog, Sugar Pig, is equal parts tragedy and comedy. She hopes the owl in her backyard returns this winter.