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What I Learnt from the Owl by Anna Saunders

how to hunt in silken plumage
tooled up with talons and hooks
　
how to split the seam of the night
with saw-tooth wings
how to consume all I kill
yet stay hungry
　
how to haunt sleep
my head - a phantom full moon
how to be outcast and avenger
spectre and seraphim, winged god and ghoul
　
bladed angel dropping from the sky.
What I learnt from the owl
　
how to voice my darkness
in hisses, in shrieks
　
how to drop from the heights,
heart shaped face falling to earth
　
as if love itself were plummeting.

---

Anna Saunders is the author of Communion, (Wild Conversations Press), Struck, (Pindrop Press) Kissing the She Bear, (Wild Conversations Press), Burne Jones and the Fox ( Indigo Dreams) and Ghosting for Beginners ( Indigo Dreams, Spring 2018) described by Fiona Sampson as a 'beautifully evocative read'. Anna has had poems published in journals and anthologies, which include Ambit, The North, New Walk Magazine, Amaryllis, Iota, Caduceus, Envoi, The Wenlock Anthology, Eyeflash,  and The Museum of Light. She has been described as ‘a poet who surely can do anything’ by The North  and ‘a poet of quite remarkable gifts’ by Bernard O’Donoghue.  Anna holds 4 Arts Council Awards for her work.   


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