Koko the Gorilla
Koko died the other day
At the age of forty-seven.
She had this command of language
That I admired. With sign language,
She commanded two thousand
Words and her compassion for
Holding a kitten as a friend cannot
Be matched in today’s Age of Humans.
Darwin’s theory of evolution still
Causes quite a stir but we could
Have learned a thing or two from
Koko’s vocabulary skills and caring
Heart. Twitter was never ready for
Koko’s hands and fingers. Those huge
Fingers that talked with us were
The same fingers that smoothed
A kitten’s fur and held it to her heart.
Writing in Sand 