( I Kings 19:12 )
Warm blood is expensive and impatient.
Snakes swallow their prey whole and wait
Because they can, because their blood
Does not pipe and squawk for food
Like billions of baby birds whose jerking
Upturned mouths want it Now. So chewing
Evolved from a rage to speed up
Digestion, to stoke faster a souped-up
Life that goes and goes like silver quickness,
Like flashing skate oblivious to the thicknesses
Demanded by the rules of ice. No time now
To do much more than call to you, Go slow,
Slow, and don’t thrash hard if you should fall
Through. If hope fades go cold and colder still
Until the brain remembers a lesson it learned
Watching fish long ago: Get the heat turned
Down, cut expenses, shush the blood, so impatient,
Listen to that still small voice saying, Wait. Wait.
—Richard R. Guzman