[New-Poetry] the Writer's Almanac

[Anny Ballardini]

Poem: "Hornworm: Summer Reverie" by Stanley Kunitz from The Collected Poems. © W.W. Norton & Company. Reprinted with permission. (buy now) 

Hornworm: Summer Reverie 

Here in caterpillar country
I learned how to survive
by pretending to be a dragon.
See me put on that look
of slow and fierce surprise
when I lift my bulbous head
and glare at an intruder.
Nobody seems to guess 
how gentle I really am,
content most of the time
simply to disappear
by melting into the scenery.
Smooth and fatty and long,
with seven white stripes 
painted on either side
and a sharp little horn for a tail,
I lie stretched out on a leaf,
pale green on my bed of green,
munching, munching.

*

And Happy Birthday to Oliver Sacks.


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Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star! 
Friedrich Nietzsche 
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