spoon worms scale worms
which-end's-the-head-or-tail worms
shovelheads and paddles
worms with fibre-optic frills
deep-sea-bed worms
Rasta-headed dread-worms
sulphur salt and ice worms
who almost nothing kills...
kind worms, blind worms
whom no one has seen or could love
how do you work, so dark, so cold
a mile below
as delicate as seamstress fingers, to unpick
the knots of bone?
... swaying like a pale bouquet of petals,
the worm-flowers grow.
... not white like the snow,
more moon-panther or silvery cloud-cat
with her ripple-patterns melting as (oh,
but she's beautiful) you stare
while valley mist whirls up and blows
between the boulders, or the sun breaks through
and all the edges are a smattering of shadows,
a glint on wet rock. Now she's still,
crouched. Now... sprung. There she goes
ledge to ledge, bound by bound,
as stones go rattling to the scree below
and wild goats scatter. She has one
marked. That one. (Play the chase scene slow
as films do, as if this might be for ever,
these last moments the poor prey will know.)
But it's off, the scraggy old big-bottomed
tahr — stumbling, you'd think, falling — no,
think again, as with rubbery fantastic
poise it leaps (there is a half mile drop below)
and catches itself, teeters like a tightrope
clown... leaps, snatching inch-wide footholds
with clattery hooves, down — leaving leopard
stranded, panting, stumped. Why are we so
in love with beauty, with its claws and teeth,
as though this is its story, not our own
and the goat's — that plucky comedy
played out through centuries
between the sheer drop and the killing snow?
but she's beautiful) you stare
while valley mist whirls up and blows
between the boulders, or the sun breaks through
and all the edges are a smattering of shadows,
a glint on wet rock. Now she's still,
crouched. Now... sprung. There she goes
ledge to ledge, bound by bound,
as stones go rattling to the scree below
and wild goats scatter. She has one
marked. That one. (Play the chase scene slow
as films do, as if this might be for ever,
these last moments the poor prey will know.)
But it's off, the scraggy old big-bottomed
tahr — stumbling, you'd think, falling — no,
think again, as with rubbery fantastic
poise it leaps (there is a half mile drop below)
and catches itself, teeters like a tightrope
clown... leaps, snatching inch-wide footholds
with clattery hooves, down — leaving leopard
stranded, panting, stumped. Why are we so
in love with beauty, with its claws and teeth,
as though this is its story, not our own
and the goat's — that plucky comedy
played out through centuries
between the sheer drop and the killing snow?