The Animal Crusade Poem by Herman Hendrik ter Balkt

One day all the sties and burrows opened
And out came the cave-bear the mammoth the seafaring
cormorant, that poetic diving bird, the white-headed vulture
the rock-goat from the mountains, the sea unicorn
You could see by their snouts that they meant business
You could hear by their flapping wings and their burr
They had thrown off their humility, cast down their yoke
once imposed by Adam's secretive hero
the one with the garden
They were, to cut a long story short, fed up
And the morals of the shotgun had been cast off
the flayed skin of flight had faded
The viper walked tall and the swine wore polaroid glasses
that lent him pleasant looks. The beavers
gnawed down telegraph poles and so cut off any form of communication
Predictably enough, the lion led the way black black
as black gold and gold-coloured as deep black
It was a magnificent procession, blinding to the eye
At the back the unicorn reported as missing, the dodo the passenger pigeon
as well as various viruses and the elated spermatozoids
So the holy animals
travelled the holy world

And do you know how or why?
Oh no, they just went travelling, they didn't have a flag!
Sometimes ripped up laws out of sheer happiness
or bled a city dry
Now and then trampled on a Jesus
or struck down a prophet or a princess
They were beginning to get tired
Haste no longer necessary
The one day's deities left the fire

Translation: 2008, Willem Groenewegen