We humans are the most arrogant of all species,

surely the most selfish, often the most wasteful and destructive.

We are not humble. We are mostly monomaniacs.

We presume animals think as we do because we are so wonderful it must be true,

We know animals feel things like we do, because why would they feel any other way?

And we are too lazy to go find out.

We are convinced they have our emotions, because they are our emotions, so all living

things must have them.

But those of you who have shed this hubris, this self-centeredness,

who sit with them, and listen, and wait,

know better.

For then you have seen things we have no language for,  that are not from our emotions,

that are beyond our understanding consciousness and simple instincts.

And that is the mystical beauty of living with animals,

from Simon to Rocky, from Frieda to Lenore, from a chicken to a barn cat,

those moments. Moments like seeing two hens stop, touch one another gently, as if in a kiss, clean

each others fur, and be stiller than the human body can grasp.