Charles Simic: The Great Horned Owl

One morning the Grand Seigneur
Is so good as to appear.
He sits in a scrawny little tree
In my backyard.

When I say his name aloud,
He turns his head
And looks at me
In utter disbelief.

I show him my belt,
How I had to
Tighten it lately
To the final hole.

He ruffles his feathers,
Studies the empty woodshed,
The old red Chevy on blocks.
Alas! He's got to be going.


Early 1980s. The drama is in the third stanza, which gives a context for the scrawny tree, the empty woodshed, the Chevy on blocks. The owl is the opposite of the little owl of Minerva: he brings no wisdom or understanding, only a sense of being passed by. As so often in Simic, poetry comes from what is at a slight angle to the universe.