Once upon a time there was a new orangutan. He had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, and he saw the world in light and dark. He spoke in sounds that could not always be heard and his insides were on the outside. He wanted to always have his feet in the right spot, whether that was curved around a tree gathering bananas for his family, or in the water making waves for the fish to see. His feet couldn't always be in the right spot for the earth was slippery and the stones uneven. In the spaces around him he saw lightness and in the spaces inside him he saw darkness. In the spaces around him he saw darkness and in the spaces inside him he saw lightness. He wanted to find the middle, but for him it did not seem to be. He wanted to find that day when they ate strawberries on the dock and the air smelled of honeysuckle.

-- n.nigro (2013; a snowy February at earthdance)