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 the 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 the earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
throught 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 . . .
the long, perfect loveliness of sow
