Porkopolis

The Laughing Faces of Pigs

• Eight young pigs in a row look at me from the trough,
• eight laughing faces waiting for their food.
• Am I so funny seen from a pig's eyes?
• No, they'd look the same at any stick or beam.
• Nothing can make a pig look sad; his face
• is built wrong for it; his mouth curls up;
• his eyes are formed into a grin; his nose
• wrinkles with laughter at every move he makes.
•  
• Is it so many centuries of good nature,
• no inhibitions, no worry of neighbor opinion,
• that leaves its stamp upon the faces of his race?
• Or does it go back further?
• I sometimes think
• the soil's good humor runs inside his veins.
• Maybe the earth herself had a good belly laugh
• the era that she first gave birth to pigs.