Dürer's The Little Owl

Set down
by the faithful hand
of Albrecht
in 1508:
your feathers
crisp and reticent
as young leaves
claws, so carefully
askew
in the delicate geometry
of nature — holding on
to a world
holding back from
a world — eyes
brighter than an hourglass
as alive
as hearts yet
more full of darkness
than a forest:
to each of us you seem
a true
unspoken self
forever hidden from life's
puzzlement.
Is life
a dream or an agony?
In fragile
jaunty
babyhood you outlast
the fall of
forests
watching in wakeful
dream who learnt
your life
in darkness — a creature,
a simple
single world,
alive again
on fresh parchment
beneath the warm
empyrean touch
of Dürer's brush
in 1508.