My highway guardian

An old Ford rolls through the dark, November 2009


The road glows with life, November 2009


There's a new movie in which some of the characters see a snowy owl perched outside their bedroom window late at night. 3:33 in the a.m. Just staring at them. And it's not an owl. It's an malevolent alien who has edited out their screaming memories. Last week on my way home from work I passed an enormous white owl sitting atop a power pole. "Aliens," I scoffed. That movie has its symbols messed up. In the desperate reaching of my racing high-beams, my owl glows like an angel, a Bodhisattva. She is my old friend who tells me everything will be fine. Everything IS fine.

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Trotting beside me on the crumbling shoulder, I'm doing 60 and he's doing 5, a coyote barely glances at me. Like me, he has someplace to go this morning. I see him for a second, then we are both gone. Recently, a woman was attacked and killed by coyotes. They are efficient hunters. Coyotes. Misplaced survivors.

--

A doe with shredded hindquarters lies on the road. I tack slowly around to avoid disturbing her. The colours are vivid. Red that was so recently alive has no place to go now. Black and white magpies cling to her. They look after the body she no longer needs. Guardians of her passing. Jagged white ribs stab through her sienna chest like prison bars burst open from inside. They free her heart to roam on another plain.

--

It is so dark in these hours before most people wake. I'm a racing island of light that reaches into a vast universe of black. Lonesome in my arcing capsule. My mobile cocoon. The owl appears again. She swoops through my headlights and disappears in a blink. I'm startled. Awake now, she has reminded me that I am alive and breathing. My eyes relax and I can see a little farther into the dark.

I believe the owl is my guardian. She guides me safely through the blackness. She helps me understand what is true.



My guide, November 2009

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