This is a poem by Alison Bunting written during the great Covid-19 confinement of 2020
How Many Owls
How many owls would you need?
Majestic and wise
Eyes wide open
Knowingly surveying
Stoically purveying
Openly displaying
Their wisdom
And saying
Breathe
How many owls would you need?
One or none or
Seven hundred?
To give the commander in chief
Some wisdom?
Can wisdom be shared?
Or learned?
Or earned?
Or yearned for?
Breathe
How many owls would you need?
To heed
The warnings of the learned
The science you discard
The silence of a graveyard
It is so hard
To watch
America
Die
Breathe
How many owls do you need?
Even if we gave you
All the owls on earth
It wouldn’t be of worth
To fill the dearth
The lacking
The wracking to find
Your wisdom
Breathe
Where would we store it anyway?
If we could milk
The owls of all their wisdom?
Silhouetted against a super moon
Majestic and wise
Eyes wide open
Momentarily gazing
Patiently waiting
Hopefully sharing
Their wisdom
And saying
Breathe
How many owls would you need
For the commander in chief
To empathise
And not chastise
To Realise
Not stigmatise
Our grief
In the hours of our confinement
There is no refinement
No realignment
No intertwinement
No reassignment
Of your disposition
Only dispossession
And disaffection
Because of your transgression
And our great depression
Breathe
I’ll make a confession
How many owls do I think you need?
To give you wisdom?
Try as I might
To shed some light
On the number of owls
Infinite
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