Out on the street,

a steady flow of feet

leads to the National Zoo.

One of our Smithsonian treasures,

bison graze there once again,

and a snowy leopard paces nervously

as you pass by. The birds in the aviary

fly, but they can’t really go anywhere,

not that they care.  They like it here,

but not the elephants. The tigers, too,

would like to be somewhere else.

They would have left with the panda,

who recently went back to China,

or should I say, was summoned back

to China. Some of us wept to see it go.