A Canadian Owl Hooting Sullenly in Siberia... 16

  EPYGRAPHS:
  “Despite this uncertainty, we can firmly say: an owl can see a mouse on a football field lit by a single candle. However, only a specific owl can do this, tracking a mouse of a specific color on a specific football field in specific lighting and weather conditions. must be installed at a specific distance and angle."
- Martin Windrow "The Owl Who Loved To Sit On Caesar."
  ...
 “This is a person who prays, fasts, engages in self-torture, runs away from the world; who, like an owl, feels good only in complete solitude.
- Paul Henri Holbach, French philosopher of German origin, writer, encyclopedist, educator, 1723 - 1789.
  ...
"The wise snowy owls and the wolf friends
I studied in the quiet of my native forests.
And pacify the blizzard, and the winds run violently ...
Can! After all, the daughter of the snows is not just a person. "
- Lana Lantz.

  ***

  "Step aside, - I will carry my sorrow myself...
  Sullenly The Owl'll hoot that winter's coming
  My head will be burning... impossible to fly 
  Away, and you have to hibernate"[1] in mourning...
 
    "A dim empty road...Pretending October...
    It feels like much sober...Austerity mode...
    Forgotten the Code...Less lights - fewer kisses
    For someone, - who misses A hell-soaring throat...

    A fur-collar-coat, The road has grown misty,
    All sounds - have turned mystic To scream a mad toad!...
    No visits, no vote, Less fight, fewer faces...
    October embraces Austerity mode..."[2]

  A Canadian Snowy Owl is sullently hooting,
  Yearning, languishing, getting bored, mourning, getting
  Loose, melancholing, dejecting, unwinding,
  Becoming sad, and grieveing, and pushing, taking pity, 
 
  Yearning, and grievimg, sad-saddening... "Well, I
  Will not disturb suddenly your Empty Soul,
  - You are NOT my friend, You are NOT my enemy,
  You are just a stranger!... "[1] - What's Hecuba to him?...
 
  He's about to sneeze, though-the-grass-do-not-grow,
  Cold-blooded, cold-hearted, phlegmatic, does not lead
  His ear, indifferent, chilled, lost, not-giving-a fuck...
  Oh, Russian vast-and-wide snow-buried lands, valleys!...

  The famous Longing of Russian dwellers...
  Tosca-nah!... the "Ozlem"[4], ambition, pining,
  and hunger, aspiration, and craving, and wish,
  thirst, yearning, hankering...et cetera...

  "No visits, no vote, Less fight, fewer faces"[2]...
  Not a lonely divorced a-moth-beaten "blue stocking"
  Minnie-mouth to talk to, and play "cats-and-mice!...
  No single thick coutry-boy-peasant with a sharp
   
  "Let's call a-steely-spade-a-spade",[5] and "a rose is a rose"
  N'a village-born sub-Muscivite-a-loose-ender!...
  None'f "blyadokhod" stroking 'long forest "highways"...
  No single ex-Komsomol-ex-CPSU - an
   
  Over-the-knee-broken bancrupt tycoon...
  No greasy Gundyaev-"Mikhailov" - an ex-
  KGB not very successful agent,
  But now the Head of the Moscow and the

  "(W)hole"-Russian Orthodox church, - what a carrier!...
  "'n'Archbishop without a parish" ha-ha son-of-'bitch,
  Not an abandoned poor resigned professor of
  The Russian "great'n'mighty" (Pushkin, Lermontov,

  Lev Tolstoy, Turgenev, Fet, Blok, Dostoyevskiy,
  An now - when there's no USSR any longer, -   
  Vladimir Nabokov, Vladimir Voynovich,
  Sinyavsky Andrey, and so on, and so forth, yeah...)

  No line of "blyadokhod"-fun of "Russian whores,
  When walking along a City street in search
  Of some sexual entetainment", fuck me gently,
  ha-ha!...Now some more of your Russian obscene "pearls":
    
  "An over-the-shoulder-bowlder-holder!" - Guess what
  Does it mean? Well, it is just a bra for Russian
  Some clumzy and fat, and heavy-breasted "devakhee",
  Aka: "tyolkee" or "bikssy", or "diffchonkee-
   
  Na-yat'", or "kobyly", "chuvikhee", "baby",
  "podstilkee", "mochalkee", "kobyly-prodazhni."
  And here's: "yeblya-s-plyaskoi"[6], self-explaining of the
  "Traditional Russian a-late-at-night-party

  With gallons of wodka, paid- and non-paid-whores,
  Dancing and finakky quarreling with heavy
  Fights, and a choking hang-over a couple of days t'follow!...
  No Euro-Dollar Certified and Professional

  Diploma-granted, with honors who finished,
  aka "maseures"-blow-jobbers and on end -
  "anal-escorters", that is, expensive
  And elite pro-prostututes, whores-crawling-bitches!...

    "The snow is lovely, bright and deep,   
    But I have promises to keep,   
    And miles to fly before I sleep,   
    And miles to fly before I sleep..."[7]

    "And I - shall leave you, and retire
    nto myself, to my ILLUSIONS...
    My shalln’t be shattered peace-and-quiet, -
    For I’ve absolved from your intrusion.
    I’ll perish,-  with Tosca-nah! 'lone,
    Wings quietly flapping far from home...[8].
   
  ***

   THE AUTHOR'S NOTES:

  [1].  The quotations from the Russian verse: "Посторонись, свою печаль я
  пронесу сама...", by Svetlana Kondratishina (Zaporozhetz; Pronina), (1938,
  Station Dolzhanskaya, USSR - 2020, Norilsk, Krasnoyarskiy kray, USSR), the
  Author's mother.

  [2]. The Author's verse "Austerity mode" (2005) is quoted here with no
  edition.

  {3}. "Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes /;str;d;;f;;rmi;z/, which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers adapted for silent flight. Exceptions include the diurnal northern hawk-owl and the gregarious burrowing owl.
  Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds, although a few species specialize in hunting fish. They are found in all regions of the Earth except the polar ice caps and some remote islands.
  Owls are divided into two families: the true (or typical) owl family, Strigidae, and the barn-owl family, Tytonidae.
  A group of owls is called a "parliament."
  Behavior.
Most owls are nocturnal, actively hunting their prey in darkness. Several types of owls, however, are crepuscular—active during the twilight hours of dawn and dusk; one example is the pygmy owl (Glaucidium).
  Much of the owls' hunting strategy depends on stealth and surprise. Owls have at least two adaptations that aid them in achieving stealth. First, the dull coloration of their feathers can render them almost invisible under certain conditions. Secondly, serrated edges on the leading edge of owls' remiges muffle an owl's wing beats, allowing an owl's flight to be practically silent.
  An owl's sharp beak and powerful talons allow it to kill its prey before swallowing it whole (if it is not too big).
  Ancient European and modern Western culture.
  The modern West generally associates owls with wisdom and vigilance. This link goes back at least as far as Ancient Greece, where Athens, noted for art and scholarship, and Athena, Athens' patron goddess and the goddess of wisdom, had the owl as a symbol. Marija Gimbutas traces veneration of the owl as a goddess, among other birds, to the culture of Old Europe, long pre-dating Indo-European cultures.
  T. F. Thiselton-Dyer, in his 1883 Folk-lore of Shakespeare, says that "from the earliest period it has been considered a bird of ill-omen," and Pliny tells us how, on one occasion, even Rome itself underwent a lustration, because one of them strayed into the Capitol. He represents it also as a funereal bird, a monster of the night, the very abomination of human kind.
  Virgil describes its death-howl from the top of the temple by night, a circumstance introduced as a precursor of Dido's death. Ovid, too, constantly speaks of this bird's presence as an evil omen; and indeed the same notions respecting it may be found among the writings of most of the ancient poets.
  Owl in culture.
  Owls have a significant place in legends, myths and historical records. Because of human ignorance and superstition, birds were persecuted for a long time; it was only with the advent of a more scientific approach to natural history that real facts about owls began to supplant and erase their dubious reputation.
  Thoughts about owls remained virtually unchanged from the earliest times until the nineteenth century. More than two thousand years ago, Ovid in his "Metamorphoses" spoke extremely negatively about owls:
  “He became a vile bird, a prophet of impending grief,
  A sluggish owl, for mortals a harbinger of disaster. "
In another of his works, "Fasty", Ovid mentions an owl in a record about witchcraft - in ancient Rome they believed that witches could turn into a scoop with the help of magic, or the scoops themselves turned into witches and, climbing through the window into children's bedrooms, drank with sleeping children blood. For this, the unfortunate birds, who happened to be near a human dwelling, were nailed to the door in order to ward off evil in the future. Similar practices were carried out in Europe, for example in Germany, but at a later time.
  The owl is also mentioned by Virgil in the 12th book of the Aeneid, before the end of the conflict between Aeneas and Thurn: hearing a cry from afar and seeing flapping wings, Yuturna, Thurn’s sister, in despair says:
  “... Do not multiply, vile birds,
  My horror: I recognize the ruinous noise and blows
  Your wings. "
  The owl, according to Virgil, flew to the rooftops of Carthage and predicted treason, devastation and the death of Dido. Another owl, according to legend, predicted the death of Caesar.
  One of the earliest mentions of owls is found in the Bible. The Jewish prophet Isaiah depicted the future Babylon, which became a nesting place for owls and other animals:
  "...homes will be filled with mournful creatures; and owls will dwell there, and satyrs will dance there ... and an owl and ravens will dwell there ... and they will become a dwelling place for dragons, and a place for owls ... and a satyr will call out to others; and the scoop will hide there and find a place to rest."- Is. 13:21, 34:11, 13-14
  The owl is a symbol of wisdom, an attribute of the ancient Greek goddess Athena."
- Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl.
  Animal Facts: Snowy owl. June 10, 2019
  These beautiful birds are covered in white and dark brown feathers—perfect camouflage in their usually snowy habitat. Males can be pure white, but females always have some brown feathers. Since snowy owls are found in colder climates, they have a thick layer of down underneath their many layers of feathers in order to keep warm in the most frigid temperatures. 
  The snowy owl is well equipped for hunting and can see further distances than humans. Their eyes have circles of feathers around them that help reflect sound to their ears. These birds are great judges of distance, which helps them to swoop down on prey with great accuracy. Their long black claws, ideal for
snatching species such as lemmings, can grow up to 3.5 centimetres long.
  Snowy owls can live in the Arctic regions of North America and Eurasia year-round. Some, however, only stay during breeding and nesting season. When winter comes, they migrate to southern Canada and even the United States. Some snowy owls also cross the Atlantic Ocean, migrating between Russia and Canada.
  Snowy owls usually stay with one breeding partner for life. Breeding season begins in May, after the owls return to the Arctic from their winter grounds. During courtship, a male snowy owl will often kill a prey animal, usually a lemming, and hold it in its mouth to attract females.
Fast Facts: Snowy Owl
Scientific name: Bubo scandiacus
Average weight: 1.6 kilograms to three kilograms
Average wingspan: 1.3 metres to 1.5 metres
Average lifespan: 10 years in the wild - -
- Sourese: https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/ animal-facts-snowy-owl 
 

  [3]. A Russian play-of-words: "Tosca" (=longing) + Nah(uy!) (=to the fuck!) sounds similarly to the Italian "Toscana"- a provine in Italy.

  [4]. Turkish: "Ozlem" - English: "Longing" - Russian: "Тоска". A painful,
dreary, alone-lonely, and a-longing-Tosca-nah! contemplation of the Author.    See: His story "To Learn Turkish", 1998.

  [5]. "Let's call a-steely-spade-a-spade" - an English saying.
 
  [6]. A favourite "feel-at-a-loose-ends" of Iosif Dzhuga(ev)(-shvili) aka: Sralin, - soeme unconfirmed Kremlin rumors heard directly by the Author one sunny day.

  [7]. A direct quote from a Robert Frost's verse
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", 1923.

  [8]. Here, the Author's verse "Surrealist" (1992) is quoted by him with some smaller changes of the original version.



16 December 2020, Brovary, Ukraine.