Saint Francis and the Sow by Galway Kinnell

Saint Francis and the Sow
by Galway Kinnell

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 sheer 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.

---

So much about this — the self-blessing, the remembering, the great broken heart, the generosity of the teats into the fourteen mouths, how the pig is rendered as all creatures are absolutely holy. This is one that deserves to be read slowly, beautifully, and invites our own ability to have blessing rise from within us, even if sometimes needs that external witness to support us into our becoming because we are forgetful beings.

Kinnell, Saint Francis and the Sow. From Mortal Acts, Mortal Words (Houghton Mifflin, 1980)