Here they are.  The soft eyes open.
 If they have lived in a wood
 It is a wood.
 If they have lived on plains it is grass rolling
 Under their feet forever.

 Having no souls, they have come,
 Anyway, beyond their knowing.
 Their instincts wholly bloom
 And they rise.
 The soft eyes open.

 To match them, the landscape flowers,
 Outdoing, desperately
 Outdoing what is required:
 The richest wood,
 The deepest field.

 For some of these, it could not be the place
 It is, without blood.
 These hunt, as they have done,
 But with claws and teeth grown perfect,

 More deadly than they can believe.
 They stalk more silently,
 And crouch on the limbs of trees,
 And their descent
 Upon the bright backs of their prey

 May take years
 In a sovereign floating of joy.
 And those that are hunted
 Know this as their life,
 Their reward:  to walk

 Under such trees in full knowledge
 Of what is in glory above them,
 And to feel no fear,
 But acceptance, compliance.
 Fulfilling themselves without pain

 At the cycle's center,
 They tremble, they walk
 Under the tree,
 They fall, they are torn,
 They rise, they walk again.