“I think I could turn and live awhile with the animals…they are so placid and self-contained,

I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

They do not like awake in the dark and weep for their sins,

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,

No one is dissatisfied…not one is demented with the mania of owning things,

Not one kneels to another nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,

Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.”

— Walt Whitman, Leaves Of Grass

Maria gave me “Leaves of Grass” yesterday, and I am grateful for it. I might read this passage at book readings for “Going Home” as it perfectly captures my own thoughts about animals and my life with them. They do not feel guilt, anger, recrimination. They do not second-guess themselves or get depressed or agonize about their fate. They  are never dissatisfied with life, even when they suffer. I’m taking this volume with me on the book tour. If we see them as they truly are, that is in itself healing.