The Peacock

Of all the animals that they’ve got pent up in the zoo,

My favorite is the peacock, who’s always the first to greet you

With opalescent majesty, with treasures rich and true,

Bright emerald greens, mauve velvet seams, and deep Nile River blues.

There goes the mighty peacock! strutting in the parking lot

So naturally outside the zoo, you’d think it had forgot

That animals dwell inside and out here they’re wanted not.

But the peacock’s unashamed to show the gallant goods he’s got.

All where the money changes hands, and where all commerce reigns,

And where the bickering couple with the mewling babe complains,

It’s there the peacock freely roams, there flaunts feathers untamed,

It’s there the dandy trespasses — humanity’s domain.

Against the asphalt gray, against whatever color’s smog,

Against that backdrop comparable to hue of stagnant bog,

The peacock radiant stands, as if emerging from a fog,

Justifying the rhapsodic tones of this here monologue.

Oh pinioned peacock, flightless paragon of earthbound creatures!

Streaking the azure sky should be all your dazzling features!

But having fallen, not in vain, you can certainly be sure:

Wingless we, among them me, look to you as a teacher.

While others may be partial to the tiger, lion, or ape,

They’d no doubt change their minds if one of them were to escape,

Romping around their cars and kin, bending them out of shape —

They’d be lucky if they left that day with no more than a scrape.

No, I’m no tiger terrible, with brawn and coat so neat,

Nor leonine assassin, turning living flesh to meat,

Nor aggravated ape am I, who his pectoralis beats

To warn unwanted adversaries that they’d best retreat.

But when I’m feeling flighty, when the world’s normality

Threatens to rob me of my joy by maddening decrees,

When workaday will have its way spreading conformity,

Then I unfurl my feathers fine — to hell with modesty!

With overstepping stride, just like a lavish libertine,

I open and reveal my train, patterned and byzantine,

And with my manifold eyes I survey the somber scene:

Sameness, sameness everywhere, habit, custom and routine!

Such sullenness, they might as well be in captivity,

Trudging from this and to that other dim indignity,

When every day could be imbued with fresh festivity —

But, mark me how I do just that in “high society”:

Behold my upright posture, my flamboyant measured gait,

My unrelenting gaze, the one I use to captivate

The unsuspecting passersby into a trance-like state,

And once they’re stunned that’s when I commence to interrogate:

“Why do you wear such dour looks, such uninspired faces?

“Why do you move so solemnly, as if your name disgraced is?

“What fear pursues your every step? What dogged devil chases?

“Don’t you know it’s not by running that one death outpaces?”

“You see this organ — flaming blue — my corruscating throat?

“You hear the words it produces? Every bejeweled note?

“You feel the breeze that emanates from off my shimmering coat?

“You get the sense my presence to your gloom’s the antidote.”

“With squawking clamorous warble, demand utmost attention

“To your very own person, that accomplished invention.

“And if it happens to elude efforts of comprehension…

“Your method proves to every rule there’s always one exception!”

“It’s easy to be bold when everybody else is too,

“But harder is it to be where it’s been made a taboo.

“So emulate the peacock in the lot outside the zoo,

“That makes you pause to recognize that maverick inside you.”

“Go where you’re not wanted, go where it’s prohibited,

“Go with all your talents rare fully exhibited!

“And of any lingering doubts make sure yourself to rid —

“This life is more easily lived when uninhibited.”

And so I say, tucking my train of turquoise and indigo,

Imposing and puffed up with all my secret furbelows,

And feel the changéd attitude follow me as I go

Through the parking lots of life, those bleak purgatorios.

Did I, by chance, alter some minds, some hearts with feeling move?

Or were my exhortations taken as some rude reprove?

No matter, if not them then me did all my words behove

To up my pluck, forward to push, and get me in the groove.

Of all the animals that they’ve got pent up in this zoo,

My favorite is the peacock, who’s always the first to greet you

With opalescent majesty, with treasures rich and true,

Bright emerald greens, mauve velvet seams, and deep Nile River blues.

And so let’s all be peacocks, in both spirit and in deed,

Flashing our flying colors in the examples by which we lead.

Of judges’ spite, jealous backbite, and anger pay no heed,

And, like the roving peacock, be from every bondage freed.