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Of Animals
by Henry Walters
after Z.Herbert
Of animals to reckon with, the porcupine in particular makes one wonder. Plenty of things about it are distasteful: untidy caves, lethargy, and those much-discussed defenses, which can only be interpreted as a sign of hostility. But if you were to ask, it would trade you its quills for a bit of plumage. Truth be told, the porcupine has rather a delicate sensibility, for it eats only the choicest, hardest-to-find hemlock morsels, climbing high up where even the squirrels are afraid to look down. And whenever it fights with the nimble fisher-cat, it is well aware how susceptible its own small tucked chin.
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Sadly, the fossil record cannot confirm the existence of the Mandarin tricorn. It is attested in the journals of a traveling rag-and-bone man, whose wagon it upended, and in a single sketch by an Italian painter of ill repute. With back legs half as long as the front, it resembles one of the early bicycles, the sort sold by the Wright brothers before their attention turned to airplanes. Doubtless the creature’s proportions helped in overturning the wagon. And yet its hooves point inward so bashfully, no peddler, at least the kinds I know, would have ventured a reproach.
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The hawk in flight is feeling for a handhold. She claps her wings to the sky but can’t find a grip. Actually, I have my doubts that a few feathers ward off all the bruises. She settles for a weather vane or a telephone pole, but the disappointment is written all over her face, plain as day. And how soon frustration leads to excess. That last dive on the sparrow, for instance, she regrets. She only meant to ask its advice.
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When weeping willows are in their infancy, they drive toward the sun with all the single-mindedness of a cypress or a steeple. Their wrists never bend, not a one, and up, that single syllable, powers the whole massive system of hydraulics. Each branch and bract and furred catkin is taught, kindly but firmly, to keep their gazes screwed to the sun. Later on, it occurs to the willow that some might think its bark coarse or unsightly, whereupon it drops its green curtain for shame. But any basket-maker will tell you that this is not the whole reason.
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Cobblestones lie shoulder to shoulder so close together. From twenty paces, they look to be touching; kneeling down, “My,” I said, there are hairline fissures like a map’s borders, or an elaborate system of defensive moats. Ants tiptoe around in the shallow corridors the way old explorers used to enter a new forest. Sometimes a chipmunk puts a paw into a crack, and the whole Roman road fairly cries out at the separation.
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