A Cellarful of Nose - Future Shoes

could lie down with the lamb, but the lamb would be inside the
lion. Or as we say today, trust, but verify.
What happens to the lion? Toothless and declawed, he bears
the brunt of everyone who ever had a run-in with lions, everyone
who lost a loved one to the beasts. The lion becomes a christ
himself, suffering in peace the sins of pent-up years.
Like the lion we read about in the Kabul zoo, long since
tamed, like Samson, behind bars, horribly wounded by a hand
grenade, venting his forgotten power in roar after roar to the God
that forsook him.
People who watched the war without shedding a tear were
moved by the mangled animal, bellowing beyond an insensible
world. Was ever greater proof of our fall than this, the fragging of
a king?
In James Dickey's poem "The Heaven of Animals," he
acknowledges that nature is fallen, but suggests that innocence
and peace are deeper than we imagine. In animal heaven, predator
and prey live together forever, each one beautiful in its way, torn
to death one moment, and restored to life the next.
In a sovereign floating of joy.
And those that are hunted
Know this as their life,
Their reward: to walk
Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in glory above them,
And to feel no fear,
But acceptance, compliance.
Fulfilling themselves without pain
I see the lion is walking tonight from ridge to ridge and tree
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