Barn Owl Summary

An unnamed first-person speaker describes a traumatic experience in which she attempts to shoot an owl and, as a result, learns about the ugly reality of death. The poem begins with the speaker, a young child, waking up before her parents. She feels confident and gleeful about her plan to shoot the owl. The tone is jubilant and the speaker rejoices in deceiving her parents, who continue to sleep soundly as the speaker rises. The speaker then walks to the family’s barn, which is illuminated by morning sunlight. She shoots the owl while it dozes on a beam after its nighttime hunting. The tone then transforms from upbeat to horrified as the child watches the injured bird teeter and fall from the beam into the straw on the floor of the barn. She observes its horrific injuries and is terrified by her own cruelty. Her father enters the barn and commands her to shoot the injured owl, completing her task of killing it. The speaker leans against her father and weeps at the horror of this event and her loss of innocence.