Yesterday evening, just after supper, we watched a hare loping around the house just under the windows, not doing anything in particular, nibbling a bit here and there. For once, we thought to try and take a few photos, through rainy windows though so as not to frighten it away by opening them.
Later, walking Finbar before bedtime, the fox was there again by the boundary fence. All three of us were startled when a pair of barn owls swooped between us, screeching like banshees. Magic (again) !

The neighbour says they know,
they taste the air around the house
and sense a peaceful calm,
like birds that know the lazy cat, replete,
will not even stir a paw.
They come up close she says
when the house is still, the light is silent,
timid things that race away when danger strikes.
There’s something in the scent of meadow grass,
the scent of man-not-killer
around houses such as hers, as mine.
I watch the way she bends and parts the weeds,
not uprooting—they need their space too—
finger-skin cracked and black with ingrained earth,
how she listens to the song of every bird,
and in the slow, measured sweep of her hands
the bow of her back
through the crook of finger and the tilt of her head
she builds a place of safety
deer-dark
hare-tight.
