The American Political Animal

Which one animates you? Which do you harbor? The bald eagle with its intense vision and predatory eye? Or Benjamin Franklin’s choice, the wild turkey?

Do you turn to New Hampshire’s rattlesnake, Don’t Tread on Me? Or hold within yourself an amorphous jellyfish, whose dangling tentacles cause burning, seizure, death?

Each American in landscapes inland or coastal, urban or rural has invited one political animal to take root inside—the bed bug, the bad-tempered badger, the porcupine, the hobo spider spewing poison through mouthparts shaped like boxing gloves.

Or the honey bee maintaining its hive. The mother duck. The beaver, with its dams and lodges. The surefooted mountain goat. The single llama in a herd of sheep, taking on coyotes, protecting the weak.