39
You’re like a young,
white pullet.
Her feathers ruffle in the wind,
she bends her neck down low
to drink, and scratches in the ground;
but, when she walks around,
she has your step, queenly and slow:
over the grass she strides,
full-chested and proud.
She’s better than the male.
She is like all
females of all
the serene animals
close to God’s presence.
So if my eye and sense
do not deceive me, these are your equals,
not other women.
When evening makes the little hens
drowsy, they utter cries
echoing yours – so gentle – those
in which at times you complain of
your troubles, not knowing perhaps
your voice has the sweet, sad
music of the hen-coops.
You’re like a pregnant
heifer;
still free, without
heaviness, frisky rather;
if you stroke her, she turns about
her neck, a soft pink 40
tinging its flesh.
If you meet her and hear
her low, so mournful is
that sound, you tear
up grass, to make a gift for her.
That’s how I offer
my gift to you when you are sad.
You’re like a stretched out
dog, who in her eyes
always has such gentleness –
and in her heart ferocity.
At your feet she lies,
looking saintly, her fervency
unquenchably alight,
watching you as she might
her deity.
When she trails you in the house
or down the street, if anyone should dare
to get close, she will bare
teeth of gleaming white.
And her love suffers
from her jealousy.
You’re like the shy
rabbit. In her narrow
cage she stands upright
on seeing you,
and cocks her ears up high
and rigid towards you
who bring her bran
and chicory; foodless,
she shrinks into herself,
seeking some dark recess. 41
Who could take back from her
that food, or take the fur
she strips from off her body
to add it to the nest
where she’ll be giving birth?
Who’d ever make you suffer?
You’re like the swallow
who comes back in the spring.
But in the autumn she departs;
and you don’t have this art.
Of the swallow this is what you have:
the agile way you move;
and this – how when I was feeling,
and was, old, you presaged another spring.
You’re like the provident
ant. The grandmother,
with the child when
they walk in the country,
speaks to him of her.
And in the worker bee
I find you, and in all
females of all
the serene animals
close to God’s presence;
not in other women.