So tell me, what do you make of this poem that I wrote after a walk this afternoon in Omaha's beautiful Lauritzen Gardens?
IDENTIFYING THE SPECIES
Strolling the wintery Gardens,
its long silent lanes sunny but cool
I watched a single hardy person
enter my lane a length ahead.
Hooded jacket, jeans, sneakers.
Male, I thought, but then I noticed
those sneakers, so clean, so white
they shone like new. Female.
I picked up speed to pass him/her
get a good look, but just as I did
he/she turned down a minor path.
Although tempted, I didn't follow.
Halfway up my finishing hill
I stopped to catch breath, turned
And spotted he/she way behind me.
Frontal view. Bibbed hat. Male.
But when I paused to quaff water
the blue-garbed person walked
right by me: glossy red lips,
big smile, wrinkled face. Female.
When she strode on, I never
thought I'd see her again,
but I did. She trudged home
as I drove by. Hood down,
her crest of dark brown hair
visible, her ruby lips radiant.
Homo sapiens femina
straining to pass for forty.
