Poetry Thursday

And so, I would like to share a poem by Galway Kinnell, one of my favorite poets whom I discovered when I was in highschool and just starting to write my own poetry. I was re-introduced to Kinnell in the early 70s by one of my university art profs, Ritchie Kehl. Kehl was the single most influential art teacher I ever encountered and he got me started on collecting quotes to use in my art pieces. I will be forever grateful to him. The poem follows this image.

Saint Francis and The Sow

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 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.

-- © 1980 by Galway Kinnell

For another poem I posted with one of my collages, on Tuesday this week (I couldn't wait til Thursday, Liz!) check it out here.