-the owl's tale-

at 12 years old,

an altar boy by parental selection,

a pick-up ballplayer
by neighborhood communion,
a left fielder
by disposition of the hand dealt to me at birth,

a school nuisance, not by peer-
pressure alone

and a bike-rider by love and necessity,

I saw an owl in the backyard of my house

perched on an outer rim

of my grandfather’s shady, tangled,

productive, succulent grapevine.

It peered down on me

with its big, round goo-goo eyes, set deeply
into its wide, flat, feathery face.

It had the look of the stuffed ornaments
handed out by amusement park venders
when the last tin squirrel running along its track
is bullseye'd with a ping. 

the ow's head moved in quick, short jerks,

same as my head moved
whenever I was guilty of something.

It was my first living owl sighting,

more living than the pictures
I'd seen of owls
taped over the blackboard.

I tried to make peace

with this visitor to my yard

and offered to it the friendly smooching sound

usually reserved for the calling
of house cats at feeding time.

kiss, kiss, kiss...kiss, kiss, kiss..

It might have been something
I was wearing on my head, or
the usually wacky way I wore it, or

the owl’s reaction to
the unnatural sounds of cat-calling
in its natural habitat.

It crouched, extended its neck,
spread its wings and with a last
curious twist of its head toward my frozen position,
lifted from the grapevine's armature,
clearing the backyard fence where I lost sight of it.

I kept returning to the grapevine

throughout the day with offerings
of bread, shallow-panned water

and a small plate of seed, unceremoniously
donated from my blue-frocked parakeet. 

recalling information gleaned from the classroom
on the feeding habits of owls, I checked the mousetraps
under the sink.

into the night I waited there,—

even after the streetlights on Healy

glowed orange-colored over the junkyard

until, from the kitchen window

my young mother, tested to the final strike of her day

called out to me: “Billy! Get in here right now and take a bath"!

and thus ends the owl's tale.

Quequechan