Dave Bonta's tiny poem packs a whole winter scene into four lines. The title, "Strigiformalism," seems to blend "Strigiformes," the scientific name for the owl order, with "formalism," so the poem hints that owls have their own strict kind of verse. The images are quiet and cold: "ice letters" that "close all day," as if frost forms words on a window and then shuts the day down. Then comes a strange, striking moment: "night striking out at noon." Darkness seems to cancel the daylight, the way a writer crosses out a line.
The speaker doesn't say how they feel, but the tone is hushed and fascinated, a little eerie. Everything is treated as writing: ice makes letters, night strikes out text, and the owl produces poems. Nature becomes a text we're invited to read, though we may not fully understand it. The mood is wintry, mysterious, and calm, like standing in a dim, frozen afternoon and sensing something watching and composing in the dark.