Bus-sized and gentle, you are master of peace,
diplomacy, berries, grass, perseverance, pace.
Your warm, rough belly sags with majesty over ferns,
cycads and dust. Your spikes are dull and magnificent,
a row of abandoned kites, rusted by a tough winter,
in a tree stripped of guts. You’re not a fighter, though
you will fight. It’s hard to just stay out of trouble
when everyone else is looking for it, I know. Tinted red
and armoured, I think I couldn’t know more beauty
if I travelled the earth ten thousand times.
The perfections of your tiny head trounce a sunset,
your mouth holds more wonder than a sky full of stars.