Giant Snail

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.