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Felipe Avila (Class of 2026) is pursuing a major in Nursing and minor in Writing.
The poem is strategically written in the third person, allowing the reader to interpret the speaker as a person or the penguin itself. The poem encourages the reader to reflect on various aspects of the human family, by serving as a metaphor for the isolation and separation that can occur in families. The piece may also be interpreted as ironic if read through the lens of the penguin, highlighting the oblivious nature of creatures.
Oh, penguin, oh penguin.
Who might one see?
To be naïve. I could hardly envy.
'Tis the glass steel cage
that imprisons them and their kind.
Who would be so naïve to believe
the illusion that lies before thee.
Oh, but to live and die in captivity.
Pity I feel, but how could that be?
The smell of putrid decay fills the air.
Approaching their death, yet they seem not to care.
Repugnant, vile creatures they are.
How could one bear such treachery there?
Strange faces and foreign chatter.
Such primitive beings, forever deceived.
To be so naïve, that one could not see.
The lie that will forever, forever be.
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