Table of Contents

Table of Contents

(“To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.” Revelation 2:7b)

Without a table of contents we sometimes circle the day,
a striped tiger stalking our prey, a confused schoolboy
hoping the bully away, a groggy philosopher tilting a new
thought he remembered casting away.

There are too many fences laid out like mazes following
the fall line,
then creeping around the hills in topographical outlines.

One fence-line wraps around the next and higher,
each step closer to the green crest where Manzanita grows;
from there you can see the how the cows have precisely marked
their level paths around the hill.

I was asked once; no, challenged. I was challenged once in a letter,
a question really, meant to be an assault, asking me if, according to
words Jesus’ spoke, whether I had “eyes to see and ears to hear.”

The writers assumed I had gone deaf, I think. Blindness had blackened me.
And, if asked at the time of their writing, what tree paradise might bring me,
I think they would consider that hidden knowledge, and go back to listening
better and
seeing
clearer
than comrades, brothers, or best friends who sat at lunch for hours.

I only listened, didn’t I? You described her, didn’t you? The love, your first,
your darling, who was beauty itself to you. Though I never met her, through
the tears at lunch, I understood why you loved her. And I could see the glow
that made you love her madly.

I skinned my knees beyond belief when you and others briefly questioned
my hearing.

But it’s alright now, time has stopped the bleeding, and the tree is ready
for me to climb. I know you believe I’ve been restored, done the hard work,
fallen more times than possible, yet here I am still in the running. Of all
the ones who questioned my vision,
none confessed their own circles the kept them joyless. It was a puzzle,
that the heard so well, saw so clear, but spoke so sad at the joy of spring.

But it’s alright now, the spring has dawned unheeded. The parallel shafts
didn’t ask permission to bathe the crest of the hill with golden light.
It’s alright now, I’m lost in the circle, I’ve learned the hands that, one
reaching left, one
reaching right,
forgets the circle of straying. Instead
hand on hand, we open the light between us,
left/right holding left/right, we move clockwise around the room
the Round Dance, intertribal and lively.

It’s alright now, I’ve found the movement that suits me,
the music I longed to hear,
and paradise’s tree seen clearly now. It’s alright now, old friend,
we might have been only sleeping.