Animal Self
Kate Miller
My hands remember forepaws.
In an instant the corncobs I’m shucking
are pinecones shrinking to a pile of flakes
in the flurry of my paws.
My tiny claws extract the seeds
for another time.
I nibble as I work.
I remember how my hands
took on their separate lives,
left and right,
when I wakened this morning
to the purring of my cat.
He held one paw fast upon a mouse,
as the other softly-padded palm
gently touched my cheek.
I don’t recall my single cell state,
flagellum waving toward the light;
yet I still move toward the light.
In abandon I might sink
into my reptile being,
my spine a winding dance of love.
But sometimes slitted eyes
calculate the timing, not the cost
of a toxic lash of tongue.
Bear, chimp and dolphin
tie my cross-wired brain
to elemental knowing.
We share a common language-
pain, contentment, grief, affection
and what it takes to live each day.
But only in my still evolving human body
is there poetry.
In an instant the corncobs I’m shucking
are pinecones shrinking to a pile of flakes
in the flurry of my paws.
My tiny claws extract the seeds
for another time.
I nibble as I work.
I remember how my hands
took on their separate lives,
left and right,
when I wakened this morning
to the purring of my cat.
He held one paw fast upon a mouse,
as the other softly-padded palm
gently touched my cheek.
I don’t recall my single cell state,
flagellum waving toward the light;
yet I still move toward the light.
In abandon I might sink
into my reptile being,
my spine a winding dance of love.
But sometimes slitted eyes
calculate the timing, not the cost
of a toxic lash of tongue.
Bear, chimp and dolphin
tie my cross-wired brain
to elemental knowing.
We share a common language-
pain, contentment, grief, affection
and what it takes to live each day.
But only in my still evolving human body
is there poetry.
Working notes
This poem came on the heels of an embodiment workshop at Goddard College that included recent findings in cognitive brain science related to our development as humans from single cell nervous systems to “speaking bodies.” All my life I have felt a profound connection with other animals, and the sudden recognition that my complex brain retains elements of all the forms that have preceded me, that in the chemical and neural networks of my amazing body I embrace them all, came as an almost overwhelming “in body” experience. I felt my hands as squirrel paws. I recognized my hands in my cat’s paws. The poem tries to express some of these felt connections and ways in which they define my own being.
About the author
Kate is a mother and grandmother, a retired historian and park manager in the National Park Service, and a student of embodiment and transformative language arts at Goddard College. She is learning to ride her four-year old mustang, Sky, as fulfillment of a lifelong dream and an embodiment practice. She is at her core a writer.