A found poem (from 20 years past)

“Zebra”

The early sun feels warm against my face and body.

It stirs me.

I am a proud being!

My stripes are bold!

I am not simply a meal for the lion!

I am not the pathetic wildebeest!

My brothers and sisters and I are clever.

Our stripes are bold.

We can kill with a swift kick to the head.

We are not respected along this plain;

Yet are not our bold lines of black and white

            More beautiful than the matted mane of the lion?

The very Mother of Nature painstakingly paints us all

            One by one; we are all, each of us, unique!

These other beings that share our plain know nothing.

The hyena cackles and taunts the lion –

            It is a fool and will earn a fool’s reward.

The lion troubles itself with the foolish hyena –

            Its ego is too big to enjoy patience

            And forego trivialities.

The wildebeest walks, drinks, eats, sleeps –

            It is food for the vulture, the lion, the hyena.

            It is pathetic.

My brothers and sisters and I know,

We know our stripes are bold!

The warm sun does stir me.

I am striped, and I am beautiful.

Chapel Hill, 1996