Does a donkey know that he is cold?

Does he know new records have been broken,

wind chills are dangerous,

temperatures plummeting,

storms have names,

skin freezes in 15 minutes?

Does he sense the world is changing,

the flies stay longer,

can he read the minds and moods

of frantic humans, always coming,

always going, disappearing to their

secret places behind the wooden planks?

Never staying still for long,

to stand before the sun,

and soak up his warmth.

The donkey has seen a thousand promises broken,

all over his heart,

that say we are filled with love

and mercy,

but impatience and cruelty, too.

Where is the hay?, he wonders,

to fill his belly, the warm water

to warm  his insides,

why is his human here, worried again,

brows wrinkled up, voice soft

with sympathy and concern?

Is there a cookie for me,

in all of this wind and snow?

Don’t they know, to be still,

and listen to the birds that sing,

“life, life, life, is far too sacred

to ever end.”

To listen to the blood rushing

through their veins,

when it is too cold to

stand on the open ground?

The heart is never cold,

even to its very last beat.

Death is life’s reflection in the mirror

just as sacred, the one promise

never broken.

Why do people smell so much of fear,

and worry the most,

about the things they cannot ever change?