1. The Elegance of Nature Poems of animals who have the most overlooked magnificence By: Morgan Guidry

2. Table of Contents 1, Author’s Note 2, Petal 3, Color 4, Looking 5, Still 6, Two 7, Rough 8, Inch 9, Dinosaur 10, Steel

3. Author’s Note 1 In this world, excellence has been overlooked for many. The purity of the most common creatures lies unnoticed and unseen. As I share to you the poems and elegance of each of these creatures’ hearts, I hope to share the knowledge behind these curious, carefree, and creative animal minds.

4. Oh snap, oh snap, the petal decorates. Beams from my dark shell. A turtle that settles with one petal too many is a turtle called meat. 2 Petal

5. Color To all of you who shine and light, who hop and fly and whizz and fight, who look different with colors bright: Come and share your color. To you who make the world nice, who color up frozen ice, who flutter, hover, run and spice: Come and share your color! Come and flourish the land, come give mother nature a hand, come this world is too bland: Come and share your color. The color is what gives a chance, the color will make you prance, the color makes dark dance: Come and share your color! 3

6. Looking Each day, Crow unhooks himself from night, follows a thin sight of black, on, the length of a river, along a white cloud to it’s puffy end, seeking, with his sharp, precise eyes feathers of black cold, to gather a dark family and be guardians of the night. Dark-finder Night-finder Searching those not light. Each park: daylight into dark. 4

7. Still Because of fear, I stay still and stiller. I wait and focus, and trace the killer. Two are so sweet, but one- a jailer. I think the one moving will be my bailer. 5

8. Two Doubled nightmare, almost identical, they swivel silent wings, synchronize each other’s steps and feathered flaps. What fills the desire for two to be one? What similarities inspired the thought of no differences? What differences of steps and flaps, feathers and flight, separate the two, most identical birds ever known? O Pigeon Duo of lurched beak and Dalmatian tail: turn those terrifying eyes away from me; differentiate the tiny difference of me from mice as I realize. 6

9. The roughest of pups. The girl is fierce The boy is pierce. Rough 7

10. Inch 8 Body bright, he curls round in the living cage of pearl. One last long moment one last glance of stolen pure light with large eyes, remembered easily forever. Then…pushing twist, a blinding mist… twist, turn, move. Fight… daylight. As shell breaks loose and provides room, he feels shell stick against wind’s push with it’s gooey glands and keeps the spot that it was given.

11. Dinosaur 9 As mountains move across the land, we make a musical band and always scattering our prey, only to let them run away. While fighting with each other alike, while others take an endless hike, I fight and hunt to eat and kill and always, always, stalk the ill. I snap my head and swing my tail, eventually the prey will flail, will flail. I do not grieve, I do not care, I have other things I need to bare: to watch dinosaurs grow from a dime, to swim the currents, to travel through time.

12. Steel 10 Forge a shell and live in it, I always say. I’ll make it bigger. Just keep growing proud. Bang the steel, then we’ll just see how bigger steel is than me. Edit your short, edit your flaws: that way you’ll always have something to do. Grow when you can. Forge when you need to. Size will be good soon enough. Someone has to make fine steel every night. I might as well do it.