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.
~Galway Kinnell “Saint Francis and the Sow”

None of us trust our own loveliness;
we who are concerned with a blemish
or an unusual shape of toe or nose.

Yet we are made as we are
as an image of our Maker.

If we consider the purpose for which we’re created,
then we are just as we should be –
blessed with exact shape and size and spirit
with which we serve and bring joy to others.

Our loveliness must be retold
so we believe it thoroughly –
as a bud is all about blossoming,
a mother pours her love into the empty,
a father leads and guides the lost.