There is a wolf in me .... fangs for tearing gashes .... I keep the wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fox in me .... I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers .... I circle and loop and double-cross.
There is a hog in me .... a machinery for eating and grunting, for sleeping satisfied in the sun - I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fish in me .... I know I came from salt-blue watergates .... I know I scurried with shoals of herring before the water went down .... before Noah .... before the first chapter of Genesis.
There is a baboon in me .... hairy under the armpits .... here are the hawk-eyed hankering men .... here are the blonde and blue-eyed women .... here they hide curled up sleeping ready to snarl and kill .... ready to sing and give milk .... waiting - I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.
There is an eagle and a mocking bird in me .... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams .... and fights among the sierra crags of what I want .... and the mockingbird warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark Hills of my wishes - And I got the eagle and the mocking bird from the wilderness.
Oh, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie inside my ribs, under my bony skull, under my red-valved heart - and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and a mother and a lover: it came from God knows where; it is going to God knows where - For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.
~ Carl Sandburg ~
There is a fox in me .... I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers .... I circle and loop and double-cross.
There is a hog in me .... a machinery for eating and grunting, for sleeping satisfied in the sun - I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fish in me .... I know I came from salt-blue watergates .... I know I scurried with shoals of herring before the water went down .... before Noah .... before the first chapter of Genesis.
There is a baboon in me .... hairy under the armpits .... here are the hawk-eyed hankering men .... here are the blonde and blue-eyed women .... here they hide curled up sleeping ready to snarl and kill .... ready to sing and give milk .... waiting - I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.
There is an eagle and a mocking bird in me .... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams .... and fights among the sierra crags of what I want .... and the mockingbird warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark Hills of my wishes - And I got the eagle and the mocking bird from the wilderness.
Oh, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie inside my ribs, under my bony skull, under my red-valved heart - and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and a mother and a lover: it came from God knows where; it is going to God knows where - For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.
~ Carl Sandburg ~
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