Be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain
—Revelation 3:9
I walk the fields for miles, winding through
alfalfa stocks shaking like a lion’s mane, saw
buzzards gutted and deer, driven by drought,
crack open the green rinds of crabapples
to drink deep of the syrupy juices. Let there be
one place left where miracles can still happen.
Once, the parable of the world was slung across
a boy’s shoulders. If I look hard enough I can see
a whole country, or what was left. But these are
just stories. Golden hour among the dirt lane
leading to the crabapple clearing, where words
taste of southern honey and wild berry, of mint
and buckwheat. It’s as though I am drawn by a
bell ringing prayer-time; the jewel on a priest’s
hand shining and coveted above a holy word.
And yet, the tabernacle has all but gone—.
Do what you will, but let the miracle happen,
if it ever happened in the first place.
[\]
Let the body become a jungle so un-jungled
it could be a zoo, a zoo inside the body like a garden
in late winter losing its blood-pump, its padded feet
no longer feeling the urge to hunt, to grow. The wild
eye closing, then opening like an ember in a basket
of antlers—an ember entering a pool of blood inside
this body. I can grow back my sharpest teeth, can
be an unnamed animal in the master’s garden,
longing to call it memory—
I could call it Eden, only if I want.
