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Marianne Moore - The Pangolin
Work rating: Low

Another armored animal–scale
 lapping scale with spruce-cone regularity until they
form the uninterrupted central 
 tail row! This near artichoke with head and legs and
 grit-equipped gizzard,
the night miniature artist engineer is,
 yes, Leonardo da Vinci’s replica–
 impressive animal and toiler of whom we seldom hear.
 Armor seems extra. But for him,
 the closing ear-ridge–
 or bare ear licking even this small
 eminence and similarly safe
contracting nose and eye apertures
 impenetrably closable, are not;–a true ant-eater,
not cockroach-eater, who endures
 exhausting solitary trips through unfamiliar ground at night,
 returning before sunrise; stepping in the moonlight,
 on the moonlight peculiarly, that the outside
 edges of his hands may bear the weight and save the
 claws
 for digging. Serpentined about
 the tree, he draws
 away from danger unpugnaciously,
 with no sound but a harmless hiss; keeping
the fragile grace of the Thomas-
 of-Leighton Buzzard Westminster Abbey wrought-iron
 vine, or
rolls himself into a ball that has
 power to defy all effort to unroll it; strongly intailed, neat
 head for core, on neck not breaking off, with curled-in feet.
 Nevertheless he has sting-proof scales; and nest
 of rocks closed with earth from inside, which he can 
 thus darken.
Sun and moon and day and night and man and beast
 each with a splendor 
 which man in all his vileness cannot
 set aside; each with an excellence!
"Fearful yet to be feared," the armored
 ant-eater met by the driver-ant does not turn back, but
engulfs what he can, the flattered sword-
 edged leafpoints on the tail and artichoke set leg-and 
 body-plates
quivering violently when it retaliates 
 and swarms on him. Compact like the furled fringed frill
 on the hat-brim of Gargallo’s hollow iron head of a 
 matador, he will drop and will
 then walk away
 unhurt, although if unintruded on,
 he cautiously works down the tree, helped
by his tail. The giant-pangolin-
 tail, graceful tool, as prop or hand or broom or ax, tipped like 
an elephant’s trunk with special skin,
 is not lost on this ant-and stone-swallowing uninjurable
 artichoke which simpletons thought a living fable
 whom the stones had nourished, whereas ants had done
 so. Pangolins are not aggressive animals; between
 dusk and day they have the not unchain-like machine-like
 form and frictionless creep of a thing
 made graceful by adversities, con-
versities. To explain grace requires 
 a curious hand. If that which is at all were not forever,
why would those who graced the spires
 with animals and gathered there to rest, on cold luxurious
 low stone seats–a monk and monk and monk–between the
 thus
 ingenious roof-supports, have slaved to confuse
 grace with a kindly manner, time in which to pay a 
 debt,
 the cure for sins, a graceful use
 of what are yet
 approved stone mullions branching out across
 the perpendiculars? A sailboat
was the first machine. Pangolins, made
 for moving quietly also, are models of exactness,
on four legs; on hind feet plantigrade,
 with certain postures of a man. Beneath sun and moon,
 man slaving
 to make his life more sweet, leaves half the flowers worth
 having,
 needing to choose wisely how to use his strength;
 a paper-maker like the wasp; a tractor of foodstuffs,
 like the ant; spidering a length
 of web from bluffs
 above a stream; in fighting, mechanicked
 like to pangolin; capsizing in
disheartenment. Bedizened or stark
 naked, man, the self, the being we call human, writing-
master to this world, griffons a dark 
 "Like does not like like that is obnoxious"; and writes error
 with four
 r’s. Among animals, one has a sense of humor.
 Humor saves a few steps, it saves years. Uningnorant,
 modest and unemotional, and all emotion,
 he has everlasting vigor,
 power to grow,
 though there are few creatures who can make one
 breathe faster and make one erecter.
Not afraid of anything is he,
 and then goes cowering forth, tread paced to meet an obstacle
at every step. Consistent with the 
 formula–warm blood, no gills, two pairs of hands and a few 
 hairs–that
 is a mammal; there he sits in his own habitat,
 serge-clad, strong-shod. The prey of fear, he, always
 curtailed, extinguished, thwarted by the dusk, work 
 partly done,
 says to the alternating blaze,
 "Again the sun!
 anew each day; and new and new and new,
 that comes into and steadies my soul."
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