This poem was written following a visit to Zoo Miami during an electrical storm

                                                        The Wise One

 

Lightning cracked across the sky

Above the animals in lie;

It lit up the bamboo veranda

Startling Gan, the giant panda.

 

Another blast of lightning flashed,

And the dainty dik-diks dashed;

As hellfire coursed from heavenward,

Lo, a phenomenon occurred:

 

Ozone oozed into the zoo,

And this was news unto the gnu,

Who knew nothing but the gnus,

And so the unseen ozone oozed.

 

It filled the field where llamas leap,

This insidious, silent seep,

And wafted west, meandered east

Past antelope and wildebeest.

 

But not a yelp from any dingo,

Not a flap from one flamingo.

The zebu munched its daily hay

As the ozone went its way.

 

With lions lying here and there,

No lion sensed the altered air.

Their valor, often lionized,

Nonetheless, was ionized.

 

Soundless was the great giraffe;

Hyenas gave no curious laugh.

Into the zoo the ozone hissed,

Leaving gorillas in the mist.

 

The elephant lifted not its trunk

As the colorless airborne funk

Crept into the elephant’s house,

Rousing not the elephant’s mouse.

 

It narrowly poached a cassowary,

And airily broached the aviary;

But not a coot let out a call,

As the O³ covered all.

 

The howler monkeys didn’t howl –

No alarm did they allow;

The always vigilant prairie dog

Snoozed in his ceramic log.

 

Deep into the captive brood

Did the variant intrude,

Penetrating every zone,

Ozoning sinew, hair and bone.

 

And when the lightning storm had ceased

Electrifying every beast,

Of the oxygenated air,

None but one was well aware:

 

That old wizened jungle man,

Simon, the orangutan,

Sniffed the zephyr breezing through,

And mused, “Ah, fresh air in the zoo!”

 

Michael Roy, 2006