When I was young and bold and strong,
Oh, right was right, and wrong was wrong!
My plume on high, my flag unfurled,
I rode away to right the world.
“Come out, you dogs, and fight!” said I,
And wept there was but once to die.
But I am old; and good and bad
Are woven in a crazy plaid.
I sit and stay, “The world is so;
And he is wise who lets it go.
A battle lost, a battle won—
The difference is small, my son.”
Inertia rides and riddles me;
The which is called Philosophy.
For years I led a dreary life!
The days passed slowly, one by one;
I fed the ducks, reproved my wife,
Played Handel's Largo on the fife,
Or gave the dog a run.
I neither realised nor knew
The pleasures of a private Zoo.
I never loved a dear gazelle,
To glad me with its soft black eye,
Nor ever to my lot it fell
To know a penguin really well,
Till, early last July,
I bought a small menagerie,
And oh! the difference to me!
Now, when my spouse, perverse or cold,
Induces an attack of dumps,
I feel encouraged and consoled
When in their manege I behold
My camels' greater humps;
I fly from dear mama-in-law
To Kate, my talkative macaw.
When statesmen's speeches are disgraced
By vulgar insults which denote
A lamentable lack of taste,
I seek my monkey-house in haste
To find an antidote;
I turn for manners to the lair
Of Bosco, my performing bear.
Those " lions " whom we fête and feed,
Heroes of sword or brush or pen,
Are they more dignified, indeed,
Than creatures of that nobler breed
Which decorate my den?
The more my fellow-men I view,
The more I love my private Zoo!
The sky is open
all the way.
Workers upright on the line
like spokes.
I know there is a river somewhere,
lit, fragrant, golden mist, all that,
whose irrepressible birds
can’t believe their luck this morning
and every morning.
I let them riot
in my mind a few minutes more
before the news comes.
Send me a slow news day,
a quiet, subdued day,
in which nothing much happens of note,
save for the passing of time,
the consumption of wine,
and a re-run of Murder, She Wrote.
Grant me a no news day,
a spare-me-your-views day,
in which nothing much happens at all,
except a few hours together
some regional weather,
a day we can barely recall.
I am in the store touching things.
Linen napkins, a blue bowl.
The world is on fire and I am choosing
between two kinds of soap.
Everyone here is doing this, filling carts
with small comforts while somewhere a child
goes to bed hungry, while the earth heats,
while men make decisions about who gets to live.
I know what this is, this careful arranging
while everything collapses.
This is how we survive.
And also how we disappear.
