Encounter
Save a job, shoot a spotted owl
—Oregon bumper sticker
After hiking down a logging
road through dripping old
growth, I glanced up in time
to see it finish gliding over me
from behind. I might not have
noticed except for a stirring
of the blue air, which riffled
my hair. A spotted owl–my
first, landing on a wiry branch
not twenty feet away. Then it
simply stared at me, its eyes
black fingerholes poked into
whorls of feathers. When I
leaned left, it leaned left, un-
blinking, as though waiting to
see if I’d pull out a chainsaw
or the gift of a mouse. Mouse,
an owl expert explained later.
What they use to coax them
in, to band or study them. You
know, it could have followed
you for miles. I loved that
idea, to be stalked by a spotted
owl amid pillars of Douglas
firs and Pacific yews waiting
in canopy gloom. It looked
so small for its two kinds of
fame: savior of the spar-filled
forests that nourished it, or
sharp-beaked shredder of jobs,
pressing loggers’ homes back
into the spongy earth. As
we kept on staring, a breeze
ruffled its chest feathers, and
I wondered how this bag of
airy bones could carry the
weight of its reputation and
not cry out, or snap the tender
branch that held it.
