To A Caged Orang Utan Poem by Francis Duggan

Though overall you look quite hairy as you sit in your cage in the zoo
And watch me with your arms folded I cannot say I envy you
For you look an intelligent fellow though you lead a lonely captive life
Far south of the Jungles of Asia and without a family or a wife.

Your kind nicknamed 'Red man of the forest' because of your long reddish hair
And in the dwindling jungles of Southern Asia the Orang Utan are now rare
Mankind vandalize Nature's Garden and due to that wild life is losing out
And you from a southern Country now live in a Country from your home further south.

Us Homo sapiens so aggressive the habitat of wild creatures we choose to destroy
And extinction sad to say forever and we pollute the land, water and sky
Your kind now quite rare in the wild state and more Oran Utan now living in zoos
Than in the wilds of Borneo and Sumatra rumours of extinction is now common news.

A gentle and a harmless vegetarian looks at me through the bars of his cage
And though my kind has been his kind's worst enemy his small brown eyes for me do not show rage
Though I must say were I in his position I would not be as forgiving as he
I would hate the cage that I lived in and mankind would be my enemy.