Ode to a Troop

O brave baboons of Sydney

How brightly you light our way

How firmly you take the hands of we fragile humans

And lead us on a path of truth

When three baboons spring forth from a hospital

Like sparkling wine from the nipple of the gods

Who among us does not see

Ourselves, reflected in hairy red-rumped reality

But the mirror the baboon holds up

Is not the mirror of the everyday

But the mirror of the possible

We know that we too could escape from the hospital that keeps us bound

For some it is a hospital of low confidence

For some it is a hospital of social convention

For some it is a hospital of living in Warrnambool

But there is no hospital so confined

That we cannot escape

There is no electrode so embedded in our brain

That we cannot pull it out

There is no savannah so bleak

That we cannot band together with the rest of the troop

To kill and eat a leopard

Be the baboon you want to see in the world