Does a donkey know that he is cold?
Does he know new records have been broken,
wind chills are dangerous,
temperatures plummeting,
storms have names,
skin freezes in 15 minutes?
Does he sense the world is changing,
the flies stay longer,
can he read the minds and moods
of frantic humans, always coming,
always going, disappearing to their
secret places behind the wooden planks?
Never staying still for long,
to stand before the sun,
and soak up his warmth.
The donkey has seen a thousand promises broken,
all over his heart,
that say we are filled with love
and mercy,
but impatience and cruelty, too.
Where is the hay?, he wonders,
to fill his belly, the warm water
to warm his insides,
why is his human here, worried again,
brows wrinkled up, voice soft
with sympathy and concern?
Is there a cookie for me,
in all of this wind and snow?
Don’t they know, to be still,
and listen to the birds that sing,
“life, life, life, is far too sacred
to ever end.”
To listen to the blood rushing
through their veins,
when it is too cold to
stand on the open ground?
The heart is never cold,
even to its very last beat.
Death is life’s reflection in the mirror
just as sacred, the one promise
never broken.
Why do people smell so much of fear,
and worry the most,
about the things they cannot ever change?