(Glaucidium brasilianum cactorum)
There are still a few left—
Owls the size of bluebirds
Owls that fit in the palm of your hand
Owls with eyes on the back of their head
false eyes of darker feathers to fool
raccoons Cooper’s hawks bullsnakes
Owls of the wild Sonoran Desert
Owl eyes and ears a hundred times
more sensitive than ours
Owls that pounce on scorpions
and rats twice their size
Owls that signify wisdom and magic
bring good luck
Owls all but gone from Arizona
Near the Texas border and the Wall
the last cactus ferruginous pygmy-owls
still cruise
four and a half feet above the ground
—
Barbara Ungar’s sixth book, After Naming the Animals, is new from The Word Works, which also published Immortal Medusa and Charlotte Brontë, You Ruined My Life. Prior books include Save Our Ship, which won the Snyder Publication Prize from Ashland Poetry Press, and The Origin of the Milky Way, which won the Gival Poetry Prize. A professor emerita, she lives in Saratoga Springs, New York. www.barbaraungar.net
