Wedding Owl

Exiting our wedding trail

we stood, golden, awaiting friends,

khatas draped like gentle snowy hills

over our shoulders.

Greeting us with hugs and bright eyes,

several exclaimed, “Before

the ceremony, a great horned owl

sat in this cottonwood near the trailhead,

swooped over us starting up the path!”

We laughed in disbelief, shook our heads.

They heard it before they saw it.

I thought, My mother’s mother. My dead sister.

Sage, my daughter, saw it too, framed

by a forked branch, perched there, who-ing.

Owl tattooed on her right foot, child on hip,

she pronounced, “The owl of our maternal line.

Grandma made it after all.” Of course.

My mother, still alive, her memory adrift,

silent night owl searching, searching

the yellow woods. It’s true.

No photo as auspicious proof.

Just the word of observant women,

our inner who-who-who, who-who.