"The race is to steady turtles!" --
Even if the race has hurdles?
Even with its great longevity
it'll never have lift or levity
to finish before life runs out.
Hold off with race applications.
Is racer your ideal vocation?
I don't mean to be Sower of doubt,
but think speed isn't what you're about,
and that you'd make a fine doorstop.
Looking like a masked bandito,
Raccoon dunks expired burrito.
It dips it not to get it clean
but to flavor it: Swamp Latrine.
Skittish is the Great Blue Heron.
It feels when you're stopped and starin'
and will crisscross water like Charon
to keep you on the other side.
The White Tiger is very cute,
napping in its white tiger suit.
But while awake, is hard to take:
Is it nonconformist, or fake?
Let me introduce the Gaur.
It's a cow, but superpowered.
It's made of thick slabs of muscle,
And I wouldn't suggest you tussle.
They aren't cattle you can rustle,
That is, unless - in point of fact --
You're eager to be rustled back.
Swiftly sprints the slender Cheetah,
running smoothly as Velveeta.
But right now it can't rouse its feet-ah,
and slogs just like a Walmart Greet-ah.
Please allow me a conjecture:
One Meerkat stood to give lecture,
But as with me, as a pupil,
Other Meerkats lacked the scruple
To make a show of listening,
Finding the walls more interesting.
The mountain road is sometimes flat,
but it's not ever straight.
It winds through woods -- so deep and dark --
but where spotlights await.
![Photograph of a gate at Kothi Gulistan-i-Eram [कोठी गुलिस्तान-ए-इरम] in Lucknow, Madhya Pradesh, India.](https://berniegourley.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/img_7619.jpg)
A Wall -- one may love or hate.
But picture one without a gate.
It is our ever-present fate
to need to see from either side.
As I've traveled around the globe,
I've felt the music from some souls --
Those who exude, in part or whole,
a secret and sacred rhythm.
And when their tunes did call to me
I felt a yearning to be free
to dance and sing, if out of key,
yet ever so resonantly.
Who could have known that I'd go deaf.
With ear to ground, nothing was left.
It felt like a horrible theft
from all (and yet received by none.)
Tiger Riding for Beginners 