Animals and Nature

“Who saw him die?” “I,” said the fly, “With my little eye, I saw him die.”

This little pig went to market; This little pig stayed home; This little pig had roast beef; This little pig had none; And this little pig cried, Wee, wee, wee! All the way home.

“Who killed Cock Robin?” “I,” said the sparrow, “With my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin.”

Baa, baa, black sheep, Have you any wool? Yes, sir, yes, sir, Three bags full: One for my master, And one for my dame, And one for the little boy Who lives down the lane.

Hickory dickory dock, The mouse ran up the clock, The clock struck one, The mouse ran down; Hickory dickory dock.

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home, Your house is on fire, and your children will burn.

The lion and the unicorn Were fighting for the crown; The lion beat the unicorn All round about the town. Some gave them white bread, And some gave them brown; Some gave them plum cake, And sent them out of town.

Three blind mice, see how they run! They all ran after the farmer’s wife, She cut off their tails with a carving knife, Did you ever see such a sight in your life, As three blind mice?

Cock a doodle doo! My dame has lost her shoe; My master’s lost his fiddle stick, And knows not what to do.

And that moment when the bird sings very close To the music of what happens.

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.

These palms are greater than Versailles, for no man made them.

The rat is in the trap, it is in the trap, And attacking heaven and earth with a mouthful of screeches like torn tin.

Daylong this tomcat lies stretched flat As an old rough mat, no mouth and no eyes, Continual wars and wives are what Have tattered his ears and battered his head.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark. It took the whole of Creation To produce my foot, my each feather: Now I hold Creation in my foot Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly— I kill where I please because it is all mine.

… with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox, It enters the dark hole of the head. The window is starless still; the clock ticks, The page is printed.

I imagine this midnight moment’s forest: Something else is alive Beside the clock’s loneliness And this blank page where my fingers move.

i speak for none of you now, all you plotters of perfect crimes, nor for me, nor for anyone. i speak for those who can’t speak, for the deaf and dumb witnesses, for otters and seals, for the ancient owls of the earth.

You and I Are suddenly what the trees try To tell us we are: That their merely being there Means something; that soon We may touch, love, explain.

The pebble is a perfect creature equal to itself mindful of its limits filled exactly with a pebbly meaning

And honored among foxes and pheasants by the gay house Under the new-made clouds and happy as the heart was long, I ran my heedless ways.

a crystal willow, a poplar of water, a tall fountain the wind arches over, a tree deep-rooted yet dancing still, a course of a river that turns, moves on, doubles back, and comes full circle, forever arriving:

I am the magical mouse I don’t eat cheese I eat sunsets And the tops of trees.

I’d have nightmares of other islands stretching away from mine, infinities of islands, islands spawning islands like frogs’ eggs turning into polliwogs of islands, knowing that I had to live on each and every one, eventually, for ages, registering their flora, their fauna, their geography.