Lost Menagerie

This is the 461st post on Stillwater Symposia, a running start to someday tag-team with Garrison Keillor and his Writer's Almanac. Songs and notes and photographs, memoirs, memes, momentos, all are welcome as each week unfolds.

Regarding weeks, I was going to wait about ten more to post my 200th on Lost Menagerie, especially as I had the 'title track' in mind. Alas, at 190, I did not want to wait. It's a round number, anyway:

When someone set the circus free, sometime

2 a.m. to daybreak, when officers convened,

one asked another, “what’s the priority?

you got tigers on the loose, dancing bears,

some drunken clowns” – “every maringotka

opened up?” – “Pandora’s box, it seems,

and then you got the guy who did it” – “the

clowns, quite obviously” – “no, that’s too clean;

it’s more likely you and me” – “hey, I have

no interest in setting creatures free” – “your

kids will fly the coop someday” – “that’s them,

not me” – “let’s get back to this priority.”

All was not lost, reasonably: the seal could

hardly find a stream and llamas broke

into the hay bales, hook and crook, while

elephants and Bactrians would soon enough

recall how good it was to eat, how challenging

to chase the fodder that fueled a need to

more-than-entertain the master’s old routine;

absconding takes a toll, you know, and maps

beyond the published or the apps would

likely lead to more captivity. Instead, one had

to conjure instinct, invent a piecemeal plan,

look somewhat after others, if differently.

Fingerprints were spot-checked, symbolic

stones upturned, the master fretting

naturally, the treasurer acting as concerned,

the acrobats chain smoking, the vendors

sleeping in, no one’s seen the strongman—

gone with trainers chasing down the beasts?

or hadn’t he stomped out last night when

jaded by the queen, grooming all her horses

past his chance to preen? Or any in the crowd

could have flipped out just the same: the show

intoxicates, the cotton candy sours, piped in

promises of lighter life remain illusory.

By 9 some stock was claimed, by noon the

culprit found: a veteran from the Iraq war

in which the zoo was bombed, and duty

called to improvise the orders of that day.

“He said as much?” – “she did, in fact, and after

her Miranda rights” – “she’ll spend the night

in jail” – “just like the pens she jimmied with,

which now make way to further towns” – “you

think they’ll just move on?” – “faster than

a fire brigade, you’ve surely heard them say:

the show must” – “operate with malcontents”

– “as well as legends of a lost menagerie.”