Let Me Spend More Time Making up Animals

 Let Me Spend More Time Making up Animals

 

Let me spend more time making up animals.

For instance, the brick spider,

Which emerges from the red dust of the brickyard

To spin webs that resemble Victorian houses.

Or the pony that fits in your hand

But can still hold a full-sized rider on its back.

The tiger-striped hippopotamus that can fly, though not fast,

Its wings made of skin the color of butter.

Or an aquatic creature that’s a cross between a turtle and a snake,

Slim and with a shell that’s pliable like a reed

When it turns belly upward and slides headfirst beneath the water’s trembling surface.

 

All these creatures could exist in a world that possesses the perfect balance Nature seeks,

Strives for but can’t achieve

Because we keep fucking things up,

Interfering with its internal processes and mangling its machinery,

Transplanting the wrong species everywhere.

But just let me restore things to the way they should be

And eventually we’ll have squirrels that light up in the dark

And owls that fly sideways,

A wasp that doesn’t sting but makes sounds with its wings like a string quartet

Playing Mozart, or Elgar,

And chipcoons, you know what those are,

Tiny ring-tailed members of the rodent family

That are exceptionally clean and so polite they speak with British accents,

And sparrows that recite the poetry of T. S. Eliot and Emily Dickinson,

Sometimes interchangeably,

And and and—here comes my favorite—

A penguin that can drive a car,

Because I don’t trust driverless technology,

I want someone or thing behind the wheel always,

And I choose an educated and road-savvy penguin.

 

Go ahead, tell me you wouldn’t relax in the back seat behind one of them

And do your Wordle while your penguin chauffeur takes you to Trader Joe’s,

Parks the car in the closest possible spot,

Helps you pack your bags efficiently in the trunk

Before transporting you safely home,

All the while regaling you with the most interesting and hilarious stories about Antarctica

And the penguins that lived on its block growing up,

The Guinz in the Hood, you know,

And you listen, and you laugh, and you learn,

Eventually drifting into a reverie about Earth as a contented and peaceful place,

Endless days of hope for your and your neighbors’ great-great grandchildren

On a planet ruled by sanity and sense, justice and love,

A world of wondrous diversity, embraced by all,

Populated by animals like the ones I’ve made up for you today

And which you can make up for yourselves.

Go ahead and try it,

You’ll thank me once you do.