Many Of Us Identify With Animals Poem by G.C. Waldrep

Half a toy being better than
none. A forest being better than none.
An argot, a pidgin. And the miraculous brevity
of small objects. A broken comb. Detach'd
leg of a beetle. One thinks of children
on their crutches, their encounters with ghosts.
Of all shapes & sizes. Thin branches
of the river myrtles reach through them.
They move in slow groups, as if just returning
from a war. They are trying to believe
something they have forgotten.
Or to make us believe it.
In the same way that the elaborate
miniature landscapes surrounding a model
train set make us believe. In the world outside.
The tucked fields, the milkman and his lantern.
Not so much pinprick. As bezel.
Obtrusion of the syncretic.
Half a quantum being better than.
A history of the papacy during the Renaissance
is very depressing, a friend told me.
Lumps of coal for the boiler smaller than pebbles.
And fitted out. With pine boughs sighing.
With microscopes. Whether zoo or
vitrine. To attract. The approaching children.
Who will remain silent or else cry out
in wonder. Which is it we most long for.
Which is it that they fear.