...
Forgetting the pros and cons of zoos, whether in here or out there, all I see, all I've ever seen, when I look at these creatures is something worth living for. It doesn't detract from this at all that I feel the same about the trees... and you.
I remember we had this fabulous poster store in Sausalito when I was a young woman. I was the proverbial kid in a candy store whenever I went there. I could not make up my mind which posters I wanted the most. I settled for tigers and leopards and Beatles.
But what I was seeing then is the same as I'm seeing now. Beauty too transcendent to kill, to harm, to take from, to box in, to dirty, to waste, to leave. The unsaid, the unspeakable, has always been one thing. There is the story told by masters about the nun who saw in a ravine some tiger cubs whose mother was dead. The nun jumped into the ravine so the cubs could survive on her body.
I told 86 one time, when I thought we were going to be together for the rest of our lives, that I wanted to be thrown into a chipper, à la Fargo, and my meaty bits spread at the base of a grampa redwood. Now that I'm alone, I think of finding a remote enough spot that is still accessible enough for an old woman where I can lie down and let myself be eaten by a mountain lion.
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