Noah's Wife Addresses the Department of Interior

Here's a poem I came across the other day in an assigned reading for a graduate class I'm taking this summer. I got a kick out of it and thought it was time to share a poem. This one is from a Nebraska (don't hold that against her...) writer named Grace Bauer. Check her other works out at this web site.

NOAH'S WIFE ADDRESSES THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR

Birds, though they sing
sweetly, can be hell
when cramped in cages.

Cats of all kinds
do not take well to boats.

All primates stink
albeit they are clever.
Giraffes are a pain
in the neck to feed.
Try it once, you'll see.

Chickens are dumb
and geese are mean.
Swans are not always graceful.

Bears are loners. Wolves
stick with their kind,
though elephants warm up
to strangers rather fast.

The snakes weren't half
as bad as I'd imagined.
Rats--though they, too, have
their place--most decidedly were.

The insects, I got used to,
though at first I forgot
and swatted a few. Lizards
are more tempermental
than turtles. Pigs make better
housemates than gazelles.

Now that we just have
a dog and a couple of goldfish,
the place seems kind of empty.
There's nothing to pet.

Of the whole menagerie,
I'd say I miss the zebras most.
One dove still visits
twice a year, though
considering the state
of affairs thses days,
he is often a bit depressed.

When I think of what we
went through trying to keep
that whole damned zoo afloat--
the times I sat up all night
with a homesick horse, the time
all the deer and elk came
down with the croup

Of course, when the rainbow
arced new hope on the horizon,
I realized it had all been worthwhile.

But now, when I see
what we managed to save progress

Well, if I wasn't a God-fearing
woman, I swear, some days
I'd start praying for rain.

Grace Bauer, 1992, Noah's Wife Addresses The Deparment of Interior, Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies, XIII(1), 167-168.