OWL PELLET

In the beech wood the bare boughs glistened

grey in the thin December sunshine and there

on a mossy stump, also grey like a small clump

of lichen the pellet sat evincing the white tips

of rib bone of some small rodent through the 

clumped fur regurgitated from an owl's gullet.

Sitting on the stump I spread the contents in the palm

of my hand: those rib bones like small curved spears,

bits of vertebrae, fragmented teeth; a few wiry hairs

tangled in with the fur and some hard, black chitin 

from a beetle's carapace.  Not to be digested these 

things were now treasure-trove, discovered bounty 

of a hunter's leavings,  and so I left them

spread on the moss where the pellet had fallen.