The Meadow Views: Sword and Symbolic History

When skirted by a river’s confluence,

              a mountain range, or other natural boundary,

              a meadow is an optimal gathering place; lush cradle

              with its own established treaty rites

              of diplomacy and abundance.

The word meadow’s English etymology

              precedes the dissolution of the monasteries

              and the routine cadastral measurement of land.

              So it leaves a soft cast in the throat,

              a taste of Edenic green in its syllables.

Meadow is a woven basket

              pressed under epochal currents,

              reaping old arrows of hunger,

              sifting hard mineral traces of appetite.

A gang of fifty elk saunter

              the leeward edge as one body;

              the last of the light hemming

              across mountain crowns.

The elk press, slow and deliberate,

              until the meadow is defined,

              a rippling frontier

              between their calves

              hidden in the marsh grass

              and me, walking slowly backwards,

              pulses thudding across

              the ridges of my fists.

To conceptualize the words

              of faith, I was taught to

              hold a phantom sword

              in my hand and study the verses

              by its points.

An allegory of conquest

              so simple a child

              can understand it.

              Is there a sin to avoid?

Many perceive heaven

              in the form of a meadow. The path of righteousness

              is carpeted with violet flowers. The open

              field symbolizes doctrine; faith is grasses.

I am too close, and have forgotten

              that I am a stranger here.

              Ochre ripples of hair

              crest on the nearest elk.

The crown of my head

              is the blade tip pointing

              to the dark opal of sky:

              What can be inferred about the divine?