Cenizo Journal Winter 2019 | Page 12

photo courtesy Erik Kilby via W ikimedia C ommons, licensed under C reative C ommons A ttribution-Share A like G eneric 2.0 License. GREAT HORNED OWL by Doran Williams I t was an early Fall morning; enough light to see the ground, but not enough to run through the grass. Mark sat in his folding chair on the dam 12 of his Small Pond, at the edge of the woods, watching a school of goldfish at the surface of their watery universe, shimmering. Mark was not the sole Cenizo First Quarter 2019 watcher. A great horned owl glided silently out of the post oak wood-lot to Mark’s left, behind him. She swept right by Mark, startling him, just a few feet away, the path of her glide determined by gravity, genetics, and God, but mostly by the height from which she launched and the topography of the dam.