Poetry and Animals

POETRY AS FIELD GUIDE109

or used small eagles. They looked on as theirs,

impalas and onigers...^42

The jerboa enters the poem’s description almost accidentally in the fif-
teenth stanza in a comparison to the mongoose, pet of Roman emperors.
The mongoose “was praised for its wit; / and the jerboa, like it, // a small
desert rat, / and not famous, that / lives without water, has / happiness.”
The jerboa becomes a symbol in the poem for “abundance” (the title
of the second section of the poem) and self-sufficiency that is in stark
contrast to Roman grandiosity.^43 The jerboa has happiness because it
escaped notice, and it survives through its perfect adaptation to an
inhospitable landscape. The final seven stanzas of the poem give a pre-
cisely detailed description of “the sand-brown jumping-rat” that would
allow you to recognize the animal if you happened to encounter one in
your Saharan wanderings, as she surmises Jacob did.

Looked at by daylight

the underside’s white,

though the fur on the back

is buff-brown like the breast of the fawn-breasted

bower-bird. It hops like the fawn-breast, but has

chipmunk contours—perceived as

it turns its bird head—

the nap directed

neatly back and blending

with the ear which reiterates the slimness

of the body. The fine hairs on the tail,

repeating the other pale

markings, lengthen until

at the tip they fill

out in a tuft—black and

white; strange detail of the simplified creature,