The lamb speaks softly of dying.
Dogs repeat verses of meat and bones.
Chickens scratch haiku with ancient feet.
The pig snorts a sonnet concerning corn.
The cat meters her lines in a rhythm of rust.
The bones of the horse know the ballads of running,
they sing them in the horsefly’s ear.
Ducks and geese tell the glories of feathers and feet,
the world of water and the world of wind.
The goat prays bleating before its rough meal of grass.
The toad sits lowly in a sack of lumps,
his odes praise the delicious bug.
The mole with dim Homeric eyes recites and epic,
heroes battling humus and clay.
The mouse makes ribald limericks
from material he gathers in our rooms at night.
The corporate bee chants litanies to the flower.
They have no words,
their sounds behave like music.
Their art is in making their own true sound.
They only speak of what their bodies know.
1975