Last night my friend Emily had a holiday housewarming party at her new place in Park Slope. She asked her guests to bring nothing but an ornament for her first tree. And so we did. As the evening progressed and the naked tree filled with color and sparkle, a bird theme emerged. My gift: a white owl on a snowy branch.
I have not totally conceded owls to my older sister and her obsession. The owl was the Egyptian hieroglyph for the letter M, and so it is a quiet symbol for me, something I’ve been mining in the poems I’ve been writing for Book of M. I figured snowy owl would make a good emissary, a reminder to Emily in years to come of me. And yet of all the creatures on my tree, I have no owl. Maybe I should make a perch for one, too.
