“…someone told me it’s all happening at the zoo!”~ from Simon & Garfunkel’s “At The Zoo”
Cramped quarters, and crowded to overflow,
you never know how these things are planned.
As it would stand, the animals had little say.
It was sad and upsetting in a way,
that the keepers made the choices and
those without voices had little to say.
The variety of the species was intriguing,
in a league all their own, over-blown
in scope, and that left little to say.
Everyday, the wild ones were forced into domesticity,
a simplicity to those cracking the whip. The zookeeper
fond of rum indeed, due to breeding and nothing constructive to say.
Four young lions, strong in spirit and vision,
but always in division over their birth right
and wrong as it sounded, they had little to say.
Gazelles, graceful and girlish, flanked the habitat,
concerned with this and that, did strive to survive the onslaught,
but, they ought to have been allowed more to say.
When it was feeding time “at the zoo”, the milieu
benefited the fittest, as we crowded around the dinner table.
You could label us as you wish, but each dish had something to say.
Life at “the zoo” offered sanctuary, with nary a worry,
for family gave you more than we “beasts” expected.
We were well protected, and that said it all.
(C) Walter J. Wojtanik
THROUGH THE EYES OF A POET'S HEART 