April 27, 2010

Voice Box Recognition

Seagulls own the beach in the winter. Wild horses will always capture our imagination. Squirrels continue to freak me out.

Dogs will love you, no matter if you leave them alone for 12 hours and yell at them for chewing on the cabinets when you return home, or if they're being led to the gas chamber at the local pound.

Nothing is quicker than a fish, except a quicker fish.

Nothing is as awesome as a hawk blurring downward.

Dairy cows don't complain, and they could complain about a lot of things in this here industrialized world in which they live.

A fox once breezed across the trail in front of me deep in the woods. She moved like a tuft of red vapor below my knees and disappeared into the green. The next day I saw a coyote loping near the river, waiting for something. Then I saw another coyote hopping along on three legs, keeping up.

What's prettier, a cardinal or a blue bird? I don't know.

Elephants cover twenty miles a day in the wild. They live in chains in the circus.

People say don't run if you encounter a bear in the woods, but let me explain something: I will run my ass off.

There's a flock of wild green parrots with red faces where I live, and when they congregate and chatter in my sister's backyard fruit tree, time stands still.

The crows watch everything from their perch. My dog used to chase deer in the woods as if he actually had a chance.

Once there was a laboratory monkey that was confined to a cage his entire life and somehow a sanctuary got hold of him, and you know how he spent his very first day outside the walls of the labratory? He sat on a hill, watched the sun rise, watched it traverse the sky, and then watched it set.

Someday I hope to see a Bengal Tiger and a pride of lions but it won't be at the zoo because I don't go to zoos.

I feel better knowing we come from apes rather than God creating Adam and Eve out of thin air. I mean, what's more magical? What's more honorable? What binds us to the earth other than evolution? Ignoring evolution separates us from our brothers and sisters watching our every move but keeping quiet because the largest difference between us and the animals is the development of our voice boxes. I'm just sayin'.

See, the animals are my people. They've been there for me when no one else was. I have a lot more than a little bit of love for them.

3 comments:

wendryn said...

This resonates a lot with me.

ed said...

i'm so glad. i worried that people might take it personally, like if they went to the zoo, or drink milk as i do occasionally. but it's not meant to criticize. if there is criticism, it includes self-criticism that we can all do more fer the critters.

Tori said...

As a mother, I find that there is a delicate balance in life. I think we can find that balance, teach our children and still be kind to the innocent and delicate creatures of the world. And just for the record, I am not a fan of the zoo. :) Well done, Ed.