With Animals
By Bert Meyers
1
I feel like the elephant
enlightened boulder
held back by a chain
2
I act like the camel
with its melancholy
sensual eyes
and fastidious lips
3
I see the dung-colored
crumbling bison
an entire town evicted
even its sofas
falling apart
The young look over the fence
their eyes are maple leaves
after the rain
American lakes
a hundred years ago
Their mothers stare at the ground
their fathers shrink
like the countryside
The moon the oldest streetlight
touches them
with its intangible snow
4
I envy the tortoise
primordial hand
whose neck is a thumb
measuring time and the grass
5
I understand the stork
the way it paces
scholar or wandering Jew
whoever waits
for the real world to be born
6
I want to comfort the ostrich
that mad woman
wearing her grandmother’s clothes
and be like the mountain goats
who lick each other’s forehead
7
But look at the huge green toad
sanctimonious phlegm
The crocodile hell’s pavement
Bats those weird umbrellas
that open only at night
8
The baboon sulks on a shelf
prehistoric priest
whose rump is a festival
its face a sports car
his eyes glum headlights that glare
9
There’s that insect
winding itself again
another ant
berserk on its boulevard
10
And somewhere a field mouse
sits by the sea
Notes:
“With Animals” was originally published in The Wild Olive Tree (West Coast Poetry Review, 1979) and is reprinted with permission of Daniel Meyers. For more information about Bert Meyers, please visit bertmeyers.com
This poem is part of the portfolio “Bert Meyers: A Gardener in Paradise.” Read the rest of the portfolio in the January 2023 issue of Poetry.
Source: Poetry (January 2023)