• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
The Friday Poem

The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

  • The Frip
  • About
    • Masthead
    • Contributors
  • FAQ
  • Archive
    • Search the archive
    • Friday Poems
    • Reviews
    • Features
  • Subscribe
  • Submit a poem

The Friday Poem on 13/05/22

We chose Annie Fisher’s poem ‘What the owl said to me’ to be this week’s Friday Poem because it seems to us to carry some kind of fundamental truth about our place in the natural world. From the opening reference to Descartes’ Cogito to the gentle but weighty closing tercet, every word feels in place, and the whole is deftly bound together with rhyme, alliteration and assonance. Fisher displays great technique and an enviable lightness of touch — we love it.

What the owl said to me

I blink, therefore I am.
The moon and stars despise your crude chronology.
The skylark’s ecstasy is the sparrowhawk’s breakfast.

If you’re scared of the dark, don’t sleep in the forest.
You’ll see no sunsets while the whole darn wood’s on fire.
My dreams are sweet as blood and claw-torn fur.

Trees and owls keep their counsel.
As the tree is known by its owl,
so the owl is known by its tree.

Annie Fisher lives in Somerset and is a member of The Fire River Poets. She has had two pamphlets published by HappenStance Press: Infinite In All Perfections (2016) and The Deal (2020).

Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Email

Read this next

The colour blue

The colour blue

by Carla Scarano D'Antonio — our Friday Poem on 18/02/22

Site Footer

MENU

  • About us
  • FAQ
  • Submit a poem
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Mentions Légales
  • THE FRIP

    The Frip is The Friday Poem’s reviews and features magazine. We run book reviews, profiles, interviews, essays, lyric essays and other features of interest to poets and readers of poetry. Read the Frip here.

    NEWSLETTER

    Why not sign up for our weekly newsletter and never miss a Friday Poem again? Pop your email address in the box and click the button.

    Copyright © 2023 · The Friday Poem · All Rights Reserved · follow the Friday Poem on Twitter · follow the Friday Poem on Facebook · ISSN  2968-7675 follow the Friday Poem follow the Friday Poem on