Along a Messy Riverbank

I have a special fondness in my breast
For flowerbeds with dowdy, stinking weeds
And decomposing fish among the reeds
Along a messy riverbank, a zest
For chattering small rodents in a nest
Under low branches, with their unmet needs
And open mouths, their caches of fresh seeds
And nervous tics. I think I like those best.

Some people feel life shows too great a range
Of scenes, of tastes sour, salty, bittersweet,
Of attitudes and rat-catchers, replete
With courage, inattention, flight, and change.
I think, rather, that not enough is strange,
That almost all of life is much too neat.