Bud

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 reteach 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 of earth on the sow, and the sow   

began remembering all down her thick length,   

from the earthen snout all the way 

through the fodder and 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.

“St. Francis and the Sow”

Galway Kinnell