Self-Portrait as a Blind Snowy Owl

Some own it all
under the exclusivity of privilege,
the privilege of privilege a seemingly
infinite capacity not
to recognize itself
or so the story goes
until the Prince comes down
his jaw long & face shave clean
his cheekbones high
and riding into the city
atop a filigreed royal chariot
Sakyamuni glimpses suffering then
he sees death & injustice
the naked toddlers at play in cesspits
the clusters of gaunt starving elders
menacing moneylenders, sullen slaces
he sees it all then,
and that changes everything,
that changes everything living
or seen by the living
into shared spaces
people with cares,
so that a quarter-century later
long past the hour
when he had first seen
how even kindness connects with fear
his path takes him
by the lawyer’s slow-eyed daughter,
she who as a result perhaps
of a series of small
shabby acts from third grade
to the nursing home
has been returned
as a blind snowy owl—
and when they talk
he describes to her
others he has met,
cutthroats returned as harbor seals
and nets full of gathered-up thorns reborn
as trim lawns
their sprinklers showering
the naked waistbands of demons,
after which she tells him
she’s happy that she’s blind, she’s happy
she knows his brother’s nickname is “Rabbit”
and she might have been obliged
to eat him
if she could see.