{"id":942,"date":"2023-01-15T00:49:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-15T07:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/?p=942"},"modified":"2023-01-10T10:40:10","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T17:40:10","slug":"animals-by-james-b-nicola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/2023\/01\/15\/animals-by-james-b-nicola\/","title":{"rendered":"“Animals” by James B. Nicola"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


I\u2019ve gawked at armies\u2019<\/em> actions, vast and organized as ants,
been taken with a pride<\/em>, the strut of lions, and the stalk.
I\u2019ve gaped at flocks<\/em> that follow as convincible as lambs
and giggled at a gaggle<\/em>, honking, hissing, just to talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve shuddered at a cackling pack<\/em> of canines as they skulk\u2019d<\/em>
and shivered at a wave<\/em> of little lemmings on the move,
took caution at forebodings of a murder<\/em> gathering,
seen wakes of swarms\u2019<\/em> destruction as they hied home to a hive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve driven by a drove<\/em>, and underneath a drift<\/em> and flight<\/em>.
I\u2019ve stumbled on a sloth<\/em>, handed a shrewdness<\/em> an ovation.
I\u2019ve paid to spot a pod<\/em>, a gam<\/em>, and swum out to a shoal<\/em>.
I tried to meet a gang<\/em> and chanced upon an exaltation<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I read about the fall<\/em> and nide<\/em>, the covert<\/em> and the covey<\/em>,
while muster<\/em> makes me doubt the term I am about to use.
A troop<\/em> turns to a rout<\/em>, and as a group<\/em> becomes a bevy<\/em>,
I wonder if some creatures aren\u2019t better off in zoos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


James B. Nicola, a returning contributor, is the author of six collections of poetry, the latest being Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense. His decades of working in the theater culminated in the nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Guide to Live Performance, which won a Choice award.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve gawked at armies\u2019 actions, vast and organized as ants,been taken with a pride, the strut of lions, and the stalk.I\u2019ve gaped at flocks that follow as convincible as lambsand giggled at a gaggle, honking, hissing, just to talk. I\u2019ve shuddered at a cackling pack of canines as they skulk\u2019dand shivered at a wave of … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/eric-tompkins-B22JxzOkjYs-unsplash.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":943,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions\/943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}