gk

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to retrach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings on earth on the sow, and the sow
began remebering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and the slops to the spiritual curl of the
   tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and
   shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
   and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.