This poem arose out of conversations at Skálholt with Ulla, Peder and Woyzeck

Round
and round the mulberry bush,
unwearying,
the worm winds skeins of silk
to vest herself in bright brocade,
and consecrate a caterfalque,
a caterpillar’s offering.
Unblemished by self-interest,
appeasing penitence,
and neither touched by bribe nor blame,
the worm unfurls her silken string.
From her own body, threaded pearls proclaim
that Gift and Giver are the same.
In innocence of strategy,
the body of the worm,
becomes a loom, 
on which she weaves herself a shroud,
a shimmering silken-sinewed tomb.
Forsaken, her abandonment 
is not assuaged by optimistic prophecy. 
Her burial, impermeable
as any rock would make it so. 
Did any late-night reveller, 
or early morning gardener see,
the sunrise of a mystery?
The dusty furtive shadow of a moth
that gave the slip to certainty
that worms and moths have different DNA,
and sacrifice, though sometimes streamed with blood,
may also gleam with selfless love,
that shy of morning light, will fold away
as history, the veil of a chrysalis.