WOODLAND

Taken by ark from Eden,
Survivors of extinction
Come to live at last in Woodland.
Creation recreates creation,
A billion years has altered paradise,
So stare and smile
At crippled curiosities
Ensnared in nets of glass and wire.
Monsters, myths
And mankind
Denied the savage stroke of fitter claws
Their birthright deigns.
Wild hearts pump jungle blood
Through tamed, timid,
Hungriless bodies.
Patient pacers,
Darting eyes like old men poised
To cross a street.
Silent starers,
Exhibits in a smaller world.
They don’t see me
Apart
A part of the human herd.