(from)
Visiting Pristine Places
on the Planet
Janet Kuypers
12/4/19 (written on and for Wildlife Conservation Day
with altered & additional writing to the 11/21/17 poem
that was first written in Antarctica, by Whaler’s Harbour)
When I was young, the world
was the size of a thimble, and all
I needed was in my own back yard.
But on my own, I was only a dot
in the Universe. So I traveled, once
saw a gold fox on a snowy roadside.
When I stepped out of my Saturn,
the fox hopped into and through
the 4'-deep snow field. I took 2 steps,
then watched his gold fur sprint away.
Then after retracing Darwin’s Steps
at the Galapagos Islands,
I stopped near the crisscrossed
overlapping Sea Lions napping —
so I could contemplate natural selection.
And after seeing destroyed British ships
from early whaling in Antarctica,
I photographed the first Humpback whales
of the season, then took a picture with
a Gentoo penguin as I sat in the snow
and the penguin approached me.
—
When a man in the 3rd poorest country
in the world was asked why the poor locals
seemed so happy, he explained.
We may not have it all, but we can
choose to be happy. And so we do.
And with these words, I proudly
choose life — I choose life for the Orcas
and Humpback whales, the Chin Strap
and Gentoo penguins, Cormorants, Gulls
and Terns. I choose life for Giant petrels,
Storm petrels, Finches, Nasca birds, even
Sea Lions and Marine Iguanas. I choose life
for the Wyoming bison who passed me on the street.
I choose life for the deer who approached us
as we slept in the grass under stars.
I choose life for all the mass-farmed
animals mankind slaughters because they
choose to consume death and not life.
I choose life, because without humankind’s
civilization, that’s when wildlife thrived.
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