The Willard family made an expedition to the Houston Zoo today, and it was a great outing! With temperatures in the mid-60s, the weather was perfect. It’s hard to describe just how close the zoo is to Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church, where I spend most of my time during the workweek. I know, I know, insert joke here about how churches — and lots of other organizations — can seem like a zoo. Flannery O’Connor said that the church was like Noah’s ark in the sense that only the storm without exceeds the stench within. Many folks, in the weeks leading up to Election Day last Tuesday, probably felt like they were trapped in a political zoo, forced to watch misleading television ads and to listen to annoying robocalls.

So let’s write haiku this week about either literal or metaphorical zoos. That gives you wide latitude to create your one verse with five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second line, and five syllables in the third line. Here’s mine:

Thought my kids were tall —
but then we went to the zoo
and saw these giraffes.