The rain has stopped.
The waterfall will roar like that all night.
I have come out to take a walk and feed.
My body—foot,that is—is wet and cold and covered with sharp gravel.
It iswhite, the size of a dinner plate.
I have set myself a goal, a certain rock, but it may well be dawn before I get there.
Although I move ghostlike and my floating edges barely graze the ground,
I am heavy, heavy, heavy.
My white muscles are already tired.
I give the impression of mysterious ease, but it is only with the greatest effort of my will that I can rise above the smallest stones and sticks.
And I must not let myself be dis-tracted by those rough spears of grass.
Don't touch them.
Draw back.
Withdrawal is always best. The rain has stopped.
The waterfall makes such a noise! (Andwhat if I fall over it?) The mountains of black rock give off such clouds of steam!
Shiny streamers are hanging down their sides.
When this occurs, we have a saying that the Snail Gods have come down in haste.
I could never descend such steep escarp-ments, much less dream of climbing them. That toad was too big, too, like me.
His eyes beseeched my love.
Our proportions horrify our neighbors. Rest a minute; relax.
Flattened to the ground, my body is like a pallid, decomposing leaf.
What's that tapping on my shell?
Nothing.
Let's go on. My sides move in rhythmic waves, just off the ground, from front to back, the wake of a ship, wax-white water, or a slowly melting floe.
I am cold, cold, cold as ice.
My blind, white bull's head was a Cretan scare-head; degenerate, my four horns that can't attack.
The sides of my mouth are now my hands.
They press the earth and suck it hard.
Ah, but I know my shell is beautiful, and high, and glazed, and shining.
I know it well, although I have not seen it.
Its curled white lip is of the finest enamel.
Inside, it is as smooth as silk, and I,
I fill it to perfection. My wide wake shines, now it is growing dark.
I leave a lovely opalescent ribbon:
I know this. But O!
I am too big.
I feel it.
Pity me. If and when I reach the rock,
I shall go into a certain crack there for the night.
The waterfall below will vibrate through my shell and body all night long.
In that steady pulsing I can rest.
All night I shall be like a sleeping ear.
