Petting Zoo

I still have this picture of myself
when I was 7 months or so in a
fold-out camping chair at a petting
zoo somewhere in the Adirondacks.

I’m touching the snout of a ram.

And judging by the look in my eye, I
would have turned down knighthood
just to grasp a few strands of his wool.

Strapped in. Two creatures sent along
different neural pathways but attuned.

Locked in the symmetry of boundaries held
in place by a universal grammar of touch.

Read More Poems From The Adirondack Almanack HERE.

The Eye Of A Bird

And so I came to a place,
Wondering what could be seen and understood,
In the eye of a bird.

Happening with unexpected connection
While walking on the moist, brown earth,
Amid scattered pine cones,
And memories.

The black eye of a pristine, hunting robin, held mine,
Pausing in her success,
Undulating worm held captive in a beak of supremely,
Pointed delicacy.

She nodded contemplatively upon her russet breast,
With wise, black eye holding mine, communicating,
Appraising, knowing, going on with her very life,
As she alone was meant to do.

This bright spirit, shining from the eye of a bird,
Pierced the doldrum of my morning and granted me
A brief, blessed epiphany of consciousness,
That touched my deepest soul.

Read More Poems From The Adirondack Almanack HERE.