a surety the world is hers
animals live their own lives
as each follows its stomach
and what seems most right at the moment,
squirrels, rodents, and roaches
live by us and with us
as if we’re bonded somehow,
a salamander can endure
our eyes, our touch,
and quickly gets back to its own world,
birds come to our feeders and birdhouses
and let us watch them, and appreciate them,
and otherwise they stay mostly in their own worlds,
yesterday a great black bear
walked down the road and we chanced to notice,
she had no fear of us, just a caution
and a hope that food might appear,
she looked, she sniffed, and she kept about her business,
almost imperious in her surety that this was her world,
and she was moving through it,
thirsty, she went to the creek and calmly drank,
and then she ambled slowly off,
we were like trees to pass, not even mosquitoes,
she came, she saw, she did not need to conquer the world
for it was already hers.
by Henry Walker
July 31, ’12
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