La Brea Tar Pits

I have long been fascinated by the La Brea Tar Pits, all the animals preserved in the asphalt, long ago dead, but perfectly preserved.  I think we all carry some version of a tar pit, memories, things unsaid, things which can't be considered until they rise to the surface.

I probably

Have many things to say.

They have gone unsaid.

They allow me to think

If you only knew

This

This one thing

You could not possibly

Care for me

The way you do.

These things

Now

They rise to the surface

One at a time

Beg to be said out loud.

I never really quite know

What is down there

Until they rise

Like centuries-old animals

Intact

Preserved in asphalt

From my own

La Brea Tar Pits.

I have many things encased

Intact

Preserved

Down there

Centuries-old creatures.

They rise from the goo.

Animal

I remember any number of retreats which had me name which animal I was most like.  I was usually at a loss as everyone else got into the activity, claiming their dog-ness, or cat-ness, or bear-ness.  Somehow, standing in our almost finished kitchen, the question made more sense this morning.
I have no difficulty claiming peregrine.  My beloved seems to be leaning toward crow.  Perhaps if we move to the Latin corvus brachyrhynchos it will sound less commonplace, more elite.

If you were an animal,

What animal would you like to be?

The question comes

In the middle of the

Almost complete kitchen.

We await the installation

Of the ceramic tile

Cosmic Mars backsplash.

The cat is sound asleep

On the boxes of tile.

Some kind of a hawk

I say.

Not a red-tail,

Says my beloved,

Not a merlin either.

They*re too small.

Perhaps a peregrine?

We settle on peregrine

For me.

For my beloved?

He loves crows.

They are social birds

Still

He says

No one sees crows as special.

You do

I say

Because you do,

I do.

Perhaps raven sounds better?

It does

He says,

But ravens are solitary birds.

Ah this may take awhile.

Still we have narrowed it

To a bird,

Definitely

A bird.