Potato plant (Creator)

Fishermen haul fish from the strangling water.
Light birds thud on the ground, a thumping lie.
Out of the sylvan
Stink of various soils, never mind nettles
Cherries explode and handsome, bearded barley
Slants at attention.

The nosey parker, thrumming at all his nerve-ends,
Saunters about amongst the husbandmen
And hard-fleshed hunters
Making translations he takes to be lovely
Of fish, bird, fruit: and the dead lives he mentions
Become immortal.

The poem he's in keeps on producing stanzas
That dangle and swim and grow remarkable beards
And tirelessly saunter
Translating into still-lifes their amazing
Mortalities. How hard to be so god-like
As one would fancy.

<i>Norman MacCaig
May 1957</i>