Some call them water bears
on account of their bear-like gait

Goeze charmingly called them:
Mein kleiner Wasserbär
(my little-water-bear)

(In profile, Goeze himself resembled a Tardigrade)

Today Germans label them –  
with decidedly less charm:
Bärtierchen (little-bear-animal)

But it was Spallanzi who christened them:
Tardigradum
(slow-walker) like
teens out for a saunter
with their mobile devices
stepping with the drugged
lightness of tar

Such are
the footsteps
of mein little bears:    
tar-like

stepping through lichen
as if it were gauze
wandering about such
tiny explorers these slow-strolling Bären