The Woman Who Loved Gorillas (for Dian Fossey)

Sometimes it is covered
with black hair and
stares at you with eyes
that are wholly other,
eats nuts and leaves in
mountain jungles in Africa and
requests that you abandon reason,
anger nations, court excess.
Sometimes it asks that you starve
yourself for most of a life to
draw you to its distant table,
has you leave Louiville for Rwanda,
forsake Kentucky for Karisoke
and sit silent with it
in rain forests for years
refusing all offers.
Sometimes it asks that you
go far away and lose life,
but then you will lie
in the tall grass of
a mountain meadow with
the hair of its hand touching yours.