A ragged lamb
on a high rock. False
thunder in the distance,
perhaps guns far off, perhaps
a tin roof falling in close by,
somewhere I can’t see. That lamb,
matted and filthy, bleating
in fear and pain, scared perhaps
by the thunder in a blue sky.
I scramble to catch her
before she falls off the edge
into the ravine below,
but I fail and she falls.
But she doesn’t. Instead she hovers
in mid-tumble beyond my reach,
as if held up on a thermal,
as if she is no lamb
but a falcon. She is a falcon, in fact,
transformed without my seeing
the event; her claws extended
toward me now, as if to keep me
from attempting the rescue
now that it’s no longer needed.
To hell with finding the music
to speak of this. To hell with
perfect rhyme and set meter
in my telling; I’m no singer
of mystery.
That ragged lamb
fell, and did not die; the lamb
became a falcon and is threatening
to tear me up. There is thunder
that is not thunder; there is violence
or tragedy filling the air. Here was
a miracle that feels foul to me,
feels unbelievable —
but it was a real lamb, is a real falcon,
a real cliff, a moment that feels real.
Why else am I still sitting here
on the edge,
wondering what I should risk?
Dark Matter 