How does Galway Kinnell use imagery in Saint Francis and the Sow?

In the second half of the poem, Kinnell develops a simile where his hand touching the bud becomes, in his imagination, the hand of Saint Francis touching a sow. In twelve lines developing this image, Kinnell focuses the reader's gaze on the specific details of the sow and of its little suckling at its teats. Few animals could be more lowly than this, few scenes more animalistic. We are put, through these details, as far from the human world as we can be. Kinnell, in effect. rubs our noses in the dirt and smell of swine. And, as the piglets suckle, Saint Francis, in his caress, declares this scene holy and necessary not for the sake of humanity but for the sake of the sow herself. It is her self-respect, her worth as a creature with young giving life and feeding that life that Saint Francis, and now Kinnell, celebrates: "the long, perfect loveliness of sow."