1"Do you know the month when mountain goats give birth? Have you ever watched a doe bear her fawn?
2Do you know how many months she is pregnant? Do you know the season of her delivery,
3when she crouches down and drops her offspring?
4Her young ones flourish and are soon on their own; they leave and don't come back.
5"Who do you think set the wild donkey free, opened the corral gates and let him go?
6I gave him the whole wilderness to roam in, the rolling plains and wide-open places.
7He laughs at his city cousins, who are harnessed and harried. He's oblivious to the cries of teamsters.
8He grazes freely through the hills, nibbling anything that's green.
9"Will the wild buffalo condescend to serve you, volunteer to spend the night in your barn?
10Can you imagine hitching your plow to a buffalo and getting him to till your fields?
11He's hugely strong, yes, but could you trust him, would you dare turn the job over to him?
12You wouldn't for a minute depend on him, would you, to do what you said when you said it?
13"The ostrich flaps her wings futilely— all those beautiful feathers, but useless!
14She lays her eggs on the hard ground, leaves them there in the dirt, exposed to the weather,
15Not caring that they might get stepped on and cracked or trampled by some wild animal.
16She's negligent with her young, as if they weren't even hers. She cares nothing about anything.
17She wasn't created very smart, that's for sure, wasn't given her share of good sense.
18But when she runs, oh, how she runs, laughing, leaving horse and rider in the dust.
19"Are you the one who gave the horse his prowess and adorned him with a shimmering mane?
20Did you create him to prance proudly and strike terror with his royal snorts?
21He paws the ground fiercely, eager and spirited, then charges into the fray.
22He laughs at danger, fearless, doesn't shy away from the sword.
23The banging and clanging of quiver and lance don't faze him.
24He quivers with excitement, and at the trumpet blast races off at a gallop.
25At the sound of the trumpet he neighs mightily, smelling the excitement of battle from a long way off, catching the rolling thunder of the war cries.
26"Was it through your know how that the hawk learned to fly, soaring effortlessly on thermal updrafts?
27Did you command the eagle's flight, and teach her to build her nest in the heights,
28Perfectly at home on the high cliff-face, invulnerable on pinnacle and crag?
29From her perch she searches for prey, spies it at a great distance.
30Her young gorge themselves on carrion; wherever there's a roadkill, you'll see her circling."