Slow passion

A snail crawling across the window pane provided a rare opportunity to see the peristaltic muscular action by which it moves.

"Seen from below through a glass plate, one can observe dark transversal bands moving over the snail's foot sole from back to front. The snail creates those bands by lifting its tail from the ground and putting it back a bit further front. The forming wave is visible from below as a dark transversal band. When it has gone all along the foot sole, the snail has moved a small distance."


Or, as Thom Gunn put it:

The snail pushes through a green
night, for the grass is heavy
with water and meets over
the bright path he makes, where rain
has darkened the earth’s dark. He
moves in a wood of desire,

pale antlers barely stirring
as he hunts. I cannot tell
what power is at work, drenched there
with purpose, knowing nothing.
What is a snail’s fury? All
I think is that if later

I parted the blades above
the tunnel and saw the thin
trail of broken white across
litter, I would never have
imagined the slow passion
to that deliberate progress.