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Posts Tagged ‘animal’

Creatures, All

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 18, 2025| 6 Comments »

I love the small sounds of pleasure
people make when taking the first
sip of coffee, or when sitting at last 
after standing for hours. That soft 
hum of delight that escapes the lips
when someone presses a thumb
into the arch of our foot and makes
small circles on the sole. That sigh
that flies out when we step into shade
on a relentlessly sunny day. Bless these 
moments when the mind can’t outbrain 
the small animal living inside us, when
our untamed self slips through the cage 
of decorum and groans or purrs 
or moans or gasps and reminds us 
beneath all our fancy syntax and
pretty words, we’re creatures,
and the body is so much more
than a carrier for intellect.
Every delighted roar and ecstatic howl
is a common language, a reminder
we are all native here on this earth,
all fluent in grateful whimper
and satisfied grunt, all of us eloquent
when we praise in our primitive tongue.
 

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I Couldn’t See the Elk, But

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 15, 2024| 11 Comments »




I smelled them, that sweet,
viscous scent that falls somewhere
between musk and vanilla,
between urine and cut grass.
The kind of scent that makes
me crinkle my nose in almost
disgust, then inhale deeply
as if the body can’t get enough.
Primal scent. Animal scent.
Scent I can’t find inside walls.
Scent that reminds me I, too,
am a creature. And there
beneath the blue autumn sky
I felt reclaimed by the earth,
reclaimed by the goldening
meadow, reclaimed by the boggy
wallow in the valley’s shallow cleft,
as if I might leave behind forever
the land of pavement and frying pans,
car troubles and saran wrap.
As if I, too, might roll around
in that slick stretch of mud
and become who I was
before I knew how to want,
how to thank, how to plan,
how to pray.

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Self-Talk on a Difficult Night

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 8, 2022| 12 Comments »




You are not a pangolin, and yet
here you are, curled in a ball on the couch,
as if tucking into yourself will help keep you safe.
Maybe you wish you had thick scales to protect you,
scales overlapping like artichoke leaves,
scales to shield you from sharp claws or teeth—
but sweet scared self, scales could never save you.
What you’re hiding from is your own raging heart,
feral with loss, savage with pain. Curling in won’t
lock the pain out. And is that what you would want?
It’s so human to wish it didn’t have to hurt.
So animal to want to defend against pain.
So of course, you find yourself in a ball.
Sometimes grief feels like an attack.
But even the pangolin doesn’t stay curled up forever.
And the heart, oh good self, the heart
was made to be vulnerable.

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When I Asked the World to Wake Me

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 21, 2020| 2 Comments »

I didn’t really mean at 3 a.m.

with a the blood curdling scream

of a female mountain lion

caterwauling in the woods,

the violence of branches snapping and breaking

and giant beings crashing in the dark.

Why should I be surprised

that the sound of desire—

a powerful female shrieking for union—

should sound like the worst kind of pain?

The high pitch of yearning,

the strangled wail of want,

it haunts me all day, all day.

All day, primal need screeches in my blood.

I am wildly awake.

All day, no one else can hear.

*

To hear this amazing sound, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxo8X5uIWRE

(Note: If you have cats, put on your headphones or they will FREAK!!)

*

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