St. Francis and the Sow by Galway Kinnell

Salmon-Berry Blossom
by Debora Rorvig
all rights reserved.

Have you heard of Galway Kinnell? I just recently read something that quoted  a few lines from this poem and immediately fell in love with his writing. The idea of reteaching a thing it's loveliness is so touching!

St. Francis and the Sow

by Galway Kinnell

 

The bud

stands for all things,

even 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 St. 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 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.

 

  ***************