Welcome to the Zoo

Mike Stavlund is a husband, a father, a writer, an emergence practitioner, and an adjunct faculty member teaching on emergence Christianity at Wesley Seminary in Washington, DC.  He tries to practice what he preaches at a church called Common Table.  He  sometimes writes poetic odes to flat church.  

1.

the trick with visiting the zoo

is not staying too long

linger longer

and the unique behavior

unfolding before your eyes

turns out to be perseveration

repeated ad infinitum

that seal playfully gliding on her back

does so every 37.8 seconds

straight line across the longest section of pool

the wolf’s quivering snout is smelling you

wondering how you would taste

then following the trench he has worn between two rocks

that elephant is horribly depressed

chewing on endless bales of hay

hungry for some Asian food

the river otter isn’t looking at you through the window

he is seeing himself in the reflection

flip-turn at the end, and do it again

that beaver sitting on the edge of a concrete pond

is lusting after the pencil in that tourist’s shirt pocket

prohibited from felling trees by environmentalist concern

the spectacled bear isn’t chilling in his cave

he is waiting for the cleverly hidden door to open

so he can punch the clock and watch TV

2.

a little girl points to a hillside behind a railing

and asks, “What lives there, Daddy?”

“Oh, nothing!” comes by rote, rushing by

but we know he’s dead wrong

a million fascinating things flourish on that plot

it’s just that no one has taken the time to pay attention