by Marianne Moore

               "The Pangolin"

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 lacking 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 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!

"Fearfull yet to be feared," the armored
    ant-eater met by the driver-ant does not turn back, but
engulfs what he can, the flattened 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 a prop or hand or broom or ax, tipped like
an elephant's trunkwith 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 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 the pangolin; capsizing in

disheartenment. Bedizened or stark
     naked, man, the self, the being we call human, writing-
masters to this world, griffons a dark
 "Like does not like like that is abnoxious"; and writes error with four
   r's. Among animals, one has sense of humor.
         Humor saves a few steps, it saves years. Unignorant,
         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 on 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."


Written in 1936, © Marianne Moore (1887 - 1972)