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Posts Tagged ‘animals’

Finding My Calling

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 10, 2021| 2 Comments »


with a line from “After the Japanese” by Jack Granath
 
 
A warm March day
and the blue sky
slips itself
into the list
of things to do,
and I would have to be
deaf or just plain stubborn
to not hear the call
to play outside—
and damn, but
I’m stubborn,
so the world
sends a bobcat,
a red-tailed hawk
and a whole herd of elk
to the yard.
What’s a busy woman
to do
but surrender?
I don’t.
Head down, I get
the work done.
I put on the blinders
of responsibility
until a poem says to me,
You do the right thing,
citizen, and my chest pounds
in urgent code:
that. means. you.
and I put down
the work and walk
into the day
to do my duty,
which is to meet the world
that will never
send an email,
the world
that will never knock,
will never call,
but will always
say welcome,
citizen, welcome.

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Inner Menagerie

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 3, 2020| 3 Comments »

In me, there is a mountain lion

who prowls the streets of town

with her powerful legs and fierce teeth.

She’s the one who smiles at everyone,

and why shouldn’t she?

But inside the big cat is a gopher

who knows best how to hide,

who is grateful no one seems

to have noticed her.

And inside the gopher is an elephant

who has been watching her mother

and grandmothers, aunts and cousins,

for centuries to learn from them

how to survive.

But inside the elephant is a sea squirt

who, attached to one spot,

has begun to eat her own brain

so she won’t have to use it anymore.

And inside the sea squirt is an otter.

She wonders how the rest of them have forgotten

the great joy of running and sliding

on their stomachs, playing tag and chase,

rolling in the water, feeling the sun

warm and generous on their backs.

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