I’ve fallen in love
with every animal
in the world.
So much so
I’m unable to do a thing
around the house.
You ask me to clean
the windows so they’ll
shine, and I say that
spotlessness will harm
the backyard birds,
the thud of slam
and sudden death,
that I’ll be triggered
by the sight of feathers,
a blue jay’s broken neck
and fractured skull.
Our vacuum is an enemy
of ahimsa, that Sanskrit
word of peace for every
Jain, non-violence
with every step, that I’ve studied
Mahavira—
am convinced
the spiders in our carpet
smell of sentience;
that to suck up their silky
webs, their eggs and
future offspring, would be
nothing short of murder.
Live and let live,
in all those corners
we never look at
anyway.
I’d wash the supper
dishes, dust the counter-
tops, if it weren’t for the
microbes and the mites,
that they’ve existed
much longer than we have,
that to disregard their feelings
due to stature
is clearly sizeist—
they’re in a universe
all their own
and we surely wouldn’t like it
if a colossus
of cosmic proportions
did the very same to us.
And the reason I refuse
to cut the lawn? The mower is
a guillotine on wheels,
one that would make Napoleon
cringe,
that the field mouse in the grass
has done nothing to deserve
this dreadful fate,
that both of us
will reap from lofty turf,
you with your toes
in the soft of green,
me with my feet
on the ottoman,
cheering when the quarterback
is sacked, by the defensive
end who’s never squashed
a bug since he was born.
Andreas Gripp
April 20, 2023
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