Rain and Woods (I Am Not [Only] an Animal)
It is raining here.
Somehow or other in this life I am a human being:
to cultivate my loves (now), and to hate those of dissimilar
temperament (forever),
fenced in by my own ignorance and incapacity for further awareness.
I attempt to call to mind the present,
to think about the various wilder creatures
which are currently burrowing beneath my dwelling place,
huddled together for simple warmth,
while a fiery hearth alone keeps me warm.
How to explain myself to them tonight?
My thoughts are not baleful ones,
I merely wish to be able to borrow their keen ears and dry-licked fur,
along with their uncomplicated, propagated coupling,
with the aim of comprehending the language of Nature.
I am human being:
my technology has created prosthetic hands with which to cover my ears,
a consequence of trying to forget my inferior imagination and design.
And in my place, would those nobler beasts be able to comprehend my passion and worry?
Could they arrive at an epiphany by way of a limited (human) perception of oneself?
No, because I say that cannot be so,
because I am not able to believe that can be so.
Tonight we sit, huddled forcibly by our own existence, waiting for a more comfortable reality in which we can feel and react.