JUST AT DARK
By Marilyn Dorf
the young doe
every night
gazes long at our window pondering
perhaps
the glow of our lamp this moon fallen down
in her pasture

Now we have no idea what animals think but it is interesting to speculate how life appears to them. This interesting poem in the Christian Science Monitor brings to the subject of perspective to my mind…and perhaps will shake me out of my long doldrum in publishing here in WP.
I read somewhere years ago…I think it was the philosopher Ricoeur…that “it is impossible to have a perspective on our perspective without somehow escaping it.” This meta-cognition was an incredible development in human consciousness. “Homo sapiens sapiens” a friend noted months ago, “Man knows that he knows.”
We are incredible creatures, just like the deer, the birds, the squirrels, and the rest of the animal kingdom. But this meta-cognition appears to set us apart in some way, allowing us to create culture but with the price tag of awareness of our own mortality.