{"id":102,"date":"2006-04-07T12:12:32","date_gmt":"2006-04-07T17:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2006\/04\/07\/the-eye-looks-back\/"},"modified":"2006-04-08T09:32:58","modified_gmt":"2006-04-08T14:32:58","slug":"the-eye-looks-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2006\/04\/07\/the-eye-looks-back\/","title":{"rendered":"The eye looks back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The pure white arctic owl<br \/>\narrived one grey Saturday<br \/>\nand sat solidly all day atop<br \/>\nthe weathered clothesline pole<!--more--><br \/>\nat the back corner of our lot<br \/>\nnear the edge of the winter woods.<br \/>\nHis head swivelled almost full circle<br \/>\nall day, like a ship\u2019s radar<br \/>\nhe scoped his temporary realm<br \/>\nuntil he became a white rotor<br \/>\nfactory approved, still under warranty<br \/>\nand I forgot he was there disturbing<br \/>\nevery mouse, every chickadee<br \/>\nevery thing else but humans, but me;<\/p>\n<p>In St. Peter\u2019s Anglican Church in our town,<br \/>\nvery High Church for a small city<br \/>\nvery high in the wall is a limestone plaque<br \/>\na memorial to the first priest to lead the congregation<br \/>\nso long ago the date means little<br \/>\nexcept to tell us we have forgotten him.<br \/>\nBut we have not forgotten his name:<br \/>\nSalter Jehosephat Mountain DD.<br \/>\nThat name chiseled into the stone plaque<br \/>\nhas a solidity, a kind of Biblical righteousness<br \/>\nthat needs to be played by mythical Moses<br \/>\nit is as if the name has outperformed the man<br \/>\nin this age no one would name a child<br \/>\nSalter Jehosephat Mountain with or without the DD<\/p>\n<p>So I reflect on this as I return to watch the owl<br \/>\nand in my revery, call the owl<br \/>\nSalter Jehosephat Mountain DD<br \/>\nand swivels around<br \/>\nlooks at me intently<br \/>\nI standing in my window<br \/>\nhe perched on the pole<br \/>\nand I begin to feel nervous<br \/>\nperhaps this is an intelligence<br \/>\nlooking back at me saying<br \/>\nif you look into the abyss<br \/>\nthe abyss looks back<\/p>\n<p>I return to the words on the stone<br \/>\nhigh on the church wall<br \/>\nhis story is there too<br \/>\nand outside behind the church<br \/>\na plot of flat stones cover<br \/>\nthe graves of his family<\/p>\n<p>Later I look out at the pole<br \/>\nSalter Jehosephat Mountain DD is gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The pure white arctic owl arrived one grey Saturday and sat solidly all day atop the weathered clothesline pole<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-writing","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}