Burgess Needle’s work has appeared in fine journals including but not limited toBlack Market Review, Connotation Press, Raving Dove, Boston Literary Magazine, Prick of the Spindle, The Camel Saloon, Eunoia Review, DeComp, and Red Fez. His poetry collection Every Crow in the Blue Sky was published by Diminuendo Press in 2009. Burgess taught English for the Peace Corps for 2 years in Nang Rong, a village in northeast Thailand, was codirector of the Southern Arizona Writing Project, copublished and edited Prickly Pear/Tucson for 5 years, and was a school librarian for 30 years. He lives in Tucson with his wife, Barbara. About this poem, Burgess says it “was catalyzed by my experiences at Tucson’s Sonora Desert Museum.
Pondering Owl
By Burgess Needle
the owl appeared to scan
and ponder stiff
saguaros and nodding ocotillos.
My light meter berserk at the
interplay of light across feathers.
The owl and I both orbited
Green cactus bark turned
pale December light
into energy while my
thin cracked skin retained
blood bathed bones and nerves
as the owl pondered
scenes beyond my scope.
Some God camera might have caught:
microscopic pores on
palo verde, the nictitating membrane
of a rattler, the flick of a lizard.
I lacked the algorithm needed
to absorb, catalog and store
botanical data flowing in waves.
Spotting quail the owl spread
once powdery
tufts to perfectly attuned
wings dragging, lifting and thrusting
forging itself against the sun
leaving me a gift
of distressed pixels.
Nicely written Burgess.