You silent ripple of wet hem over slate,

rubber necked in the greening growth –

globular lunar snouter of dark ways,

your bovine, blunted downward gaze beyond

opened sky to micro-scraps of food.

The brittle ear you slide along the ground,

your humped rebuke to beaks, bones and sun,

your stalky peer, erectile eyes, old mouth

your craquelure on granite, your garland

of quiet effort looped around our feet.

Your space-ship purity of vision,

your glowing point of will scooping a trench,

the string of pearls you drop into the earth

softly as butter out of your soft foot,

opaque as babies’ fingernails, but tough.

The infinite proportions of your form,

solidified before we learned to count,

the appetite we share that draws us on,

to fall upon the earth, then rise again,

to follow you with slow and greedy passion.