Afraid
It’s different—yikes! It has no fur.
Oh, look how fast they run!
And that one has so many legs!
(It’s worse when they have none!)
The ones that slither creep me out,
‘Cause I don’t move like that
And I am used to eyes that blink—
My friends, my dog, my cat.
But come to think, I guess that they
Can’t help the way they’re born
Or hatched or how they move around,
Or how their skin in worn.
And, I guess, they have a heart
And most have bones like me,
And need their food and water, too
And some safe place to be.
And now I see that each of them
Just goes about its day,
Too busy to give me a thought,
Just going its own way.
So maybe I can look anew
At all the ways we’re made.
I think that I would rather be
Observant than afraid.
So it was waiting all along,
This thought that I’ve just had:
“Different,” while it startles me
Is not the same as “bad.”
