The One Turn That Makes the New World

Maybe the light from a small window Tucked at the utmost eave of the barn Could be misunderstood; if only I had pulled In by the other way or not looked up Against such darkness. The animal I brought Into this no longer mine, the task Each day was to confine enough, from harm Or from each other as night loosens Over the assemblage. But in the pasture One wrong step was taken. And those who remain Are weary, heads low, torment nowhere To be seen, not even in the illumination Of men who have come to help, Who behind the double doors keep watch By the body so it does not become Anything for those who scavenge, to follow back The acts of blood right up to the locked stall And light where each shaft lands precisely again Through the again. The horse was in the snow, The rock was underfoot; all the unknowables Made whole and apparent by one who stumbled.