Now leaping down
time's alleys, immense,
a thunderhead,
but then, on the sly,
bright as a blood petal,
slight as a wheat seed,
insinuating himself
into our living,
so that unexpectedly

our dumb mouths
speak him. Our fingers
acknowledge a dexterity
beyond our own.
Even as we stagger
our limbs turn fleet
as goats. Our myopia
suddenly clears
as he begins to open us
to what we're meant to see—

his tenderness as he
judges the brownness
of the egg before it is laid.
Tells a candle how long
to burn. Designs the coil
of the snail in his small
house, and the trail
of glisten that shows
where God led him.

—Luci Shaw

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