Saint Francis and the Sow

(I love this poem, by Galway Kinnell)The budstands for all things,even for those things that don’t flower,for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;though sometimes it is necessaryto reteach a thing its loveliness,to put a hand on the browof the flowerand retell it in words and in touchit is lovelyuntil it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;as Saint Francisput his hand on the creased foreheadof the sow, and told her in words and in touchblessings of earth on the sow, and the sowbegan remembering all down her thick length,from the earthen snout all the waythrough the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,from the hard spininess spiked out from the spinedown through the great broken heartto the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shudderingfrom the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:the long, perfect loveliness of sow.