King Kong

brooding, fierce, 

strong beyond imagining, 

his eyes flicker with fire 

and flash lightning bolts. 

he is a child. 

so simple. 

so innocent. 

so dangerous! 

one false move, 

crushing fury! 

one firm word, 

gentle submission. 

he is a child. 

so open. 

so closed. 

so troubled! 

brooding, fierce, 

strong beyond imagining, 

light dances in his eyes. 

dark music tugs at his smile. 

It was a Saturday morning and the kids had been at their mom’s house all week, leaving him alone with himself and his house and his dog. He had gotten up later than usual, and now he stood in his sweats in front of a full length mirror on the bathroom door. He stood there, motionless, for a long time, staring into the reverse image of his own grey-green eyes. He had paused there for a moment as he left the bathroom, and was struck with something new that he saw in his own look. At first he was not sure exactly what it was that seemed different, but as he stood there, he began to see it. He was a primate.

He stood as close to the mirror as his eyes would focus, and as he watched himself watching himself, he saw ever more clearly that whatever else he was, he was very much an animal. He had understood this at the academic level since childhood, but he had never stopped to actually see himself physically, emotionally, and philosophically as an animal. Now this profound revelation overtook him as he stood there face to face with his own remarkable mammalian self.

Now suddenly his animalness was powerful and profound. It infused his energy and touched shadowy places in his mind and heart that he had always left uncharted—places he rarely allowed himself to go near at all. As he stood there, he met a new depth within himself for the first time. Here before him was a very simple, very emotional, deeply loyal, and enthusiastic friend who had never succeeded in attracting his attention. A friend who had always given his energy and happiness and sorrow and strength and fear and love without hope of being acknowledged or nurtured.

He realized, as he met his animal self through the glass, that though fully committed to him, it did not trust him. He had spent a lifetime minimizing it and neglecting it, and treating it as a marginal “it” in favor of his “higher” spiritual, intellectual self. He had always irrationally believed that one created in the image of God could not really have a primate at his core. How strange this assumption now seemed. Physically, he was certainly an animal; a mammal; a primate. How could this biological fact not permeate his intellectual, emotional, and spiritual being as well? If God had found this raw animal energy to be the ideal material out of which to form a self image, how could he dare to reject it. Now he was overwhelmed with urgency to befriend and embrace this primitive force, at the same time terrible and delicate, in his own heart—to explore the limits of it, and to walk with its simple power and insight and sensibilities. So he touched the ape in his eyes, and found a raw, fluid energy he had never known.