To an Emu:
Now you! Well, this is silly (or I am),
because I can only think about when
you tactically outmaneuvered man,
and won war that would not be tried again.
But that, and how you love a shiny thing,
is what you are to me. Of course, I, too,
recall the time you snatched my silver ring,
and grabbed my glasses when I first met you.
So, fortitude and avarice are yours,
and one is good and one is called a sin.
Yet stubborn could be one, and good adores
a pearl of price. Which meanings are you in?
Both guileless are yours; and I heard tell
that being childlike is very swell.
To a Flamingo:
You’re high up on two legs, looking right down
at what swims by your feet. Why did you grow
so tall if what you loved was on the ground
where down your poor red neck is forced to go?
But.. Now I think of it, man’s tall, also.
Much taller than most of our favorite foods.
And too short to reach up where fruit trees grow—
I see that, for us both, our fare eludes.
Suppose there was an Adam flamingo
who caused that you should crook your neck at fish
as man will sweat for bread? I suppose so,
for most creatures do not get what they wish.
Or did we do that too? How poised you take
the fall that someone better must unmake.