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.