From Daniel Riddle

Beneath the sun-baked prairie’s sigh,
where grasses whisper and shadows lie,
the Burrowing Owl keeps gentle reign
a monarch small, of wind and plain.

By dawn’s first blush, with golden eye,
it watches day in quiet surprise.
Feathers dappled like earthen stone,
a creature humble, yet regal alone.

It nests not high in cedar’s crest,
but deep within the earth’s cool breast
a borrowed home, a tunnel’s keep,
where chicks in downy wonder sleep.

At dusk it dances on silent wing,
a ghost of twilight wandering.
Crickets sing, and mice take flight,
as hunger wakes beneath the night.

Burrowing Owl from Cape Coral, Florida