- THE ANIMALS
- I remember my young mother
- leading me into the back field of our
farm
- tracing the constellations
- with the strong beam of her flashlight
-
- On Christmas Eve
- she'd bundle me into my green-downed
snowsuit
- push my mittens under the sleeves
- pull the wool cap over my ears
- take me by the hand down the path
- the snow glistening in her light
-
- "I'll show you a bear" she'd say
- and trace the stars of Ursa Major
-
- "And a swan flying across the
sky."
- I could really see the wings of Cygnus
-
- "Follow closely and I'll show you a whale."
- I imagined Cetus breaching in a black sea
-
- This was my mother's way of telling me
- on the night when a child was born in a manger
-
- "God loves the animals."
-
Maxwell Corydon Wheat, Jr.
