Tell them they are doomed.
Doomed to be alone.
Forever a wanderer, lost in stars
Trapped in a heap of fuzzy flesh.
Their sad eyes will fall to the dirt, longingly.
Waiting to hear news from messengers
Who guard the hot gates.
The news is not good.
A small moment of repose
A twitch of a black ear.
A wet nose.
Empty wishes that fall from stars.
They are forever outside the gates.
Now the hell-fires are felt upon their skin
And the molten stones
And flicking flames explode and
Gouge an eye.
The gates open, and the pandas are sad.
They must enter, now.
And they are sad to see all of god’s animals
Except their kin
On the opposite sides of the gates.
They do not know who is in hell
Or who is in the world.
But the stars above
Know their sin.
Confronting them.
Inside the gates
Someone cheers
It is me.
Their little tails catch fire
Their pink tongues retract
And someplace behind those dark little eyes
And inside their dollar-store brains
They ponder their fuzzy navels.
Frightened.
They hide behind the only bush they savor:
Never knowing their true nature.
No ever panda does.
All of these poems and more can be found HERE on Amazon in the anthology “A Cartographer”.