His element is silent and inexorable.
Mack the Knife waits in his eyes,
yet he is generous and brings his young
eleven mice four bullheads
thirteen grouse two eels
three rabbits and a woodcock
all in one night.

Is it too much to expect prose
to learn from the owl
his exact knowledge of his object,
his exact eyes claws wings
and be the scourge of rats?
It might, like him, then live to
sixty-eight years in the clear impersonal
and look wise and imperturbable.