This is every pet owner’s worst nightmare

This week, poet and artist Frieda Hughes faced losing her white-faced scops owl as the vet battled to remove a growth. Eventually, against all odds, it began showing signs of life

SIGNS OF LIFE

The assault from all sides of everything,

Admin, maintenance, commitments and undertakings,

You, them, others, requests and demands

For time, money or an opinion

All fell away as I delivered a small

White-faced scops owl to his death.

I’d signed his death warrant.

He was gassed and ready for his final injection

When this “what if” was weighed up

Against the idea of his burial; an unlikely operation

To remove an obstruction almost as big as his head

Against which he had strained, immobilised by his affliction

While I could not find answers. He was sliced open,

Pain-free for the first time in degenerating weeks.

The minutes dragged by the way that months can.

From his bubble-wrap body blanket

His will to live snipped at my fingers,

But his eyes didn’t open for three days.

I feed him morsels, fluids, antibiotics and Metacam,

As he stands, motionless, daily, invisibly mending.