“To the Unseeable Animal” Wendell Berry

My daughter: "I hope there's an animal somewhere that nobody has ever seen. And I hope nobody ever sees it."
Being, whose flesh dissolves at our glance, knower
of the secret sums and measures, you are always here, dwelling in the oldest sycamores, visiting the faithful springs when they are dark and the foxes have crept to their edges.
I have come upon pools in streams, places overgrown with the woods' shadow, where I knew you had rested,
watching the little fish hang still in the flow; as I approached they seemed particles of your clear mind disappearing among the rocks.
I have waked deep in the woods in the early morning, sure that while I slept your gaze passed over me.
That we do not know you is your perfection
and our hope. The darkness keeps us near you.