The_Choice

The Choice

They were invisible entities and their

efforts with me were labored and hard-won. They

told me I had no choice but to choose.

"You must choose, and then return."

Form was not in question;

sex, a secondary selection. I would be human,

human again and named, like all the times before; yet new,

like each time before. Maybe Alan or Alice, short or tall....

"May I have talent this time?"

"By Grace you may. It is written."

"May I escape pain?"

"To some degree."

"Have I not, this time, shown improvement?"

"But not sufficient."

When they left, they left something standing

like Enoch's lost scripts on the bridge of conical time

in a cave at Qumran, awaiting time's funneled-down

transport to reality.

The tall mirrors of periodicity stood mountain-high

above the meadow, converging all image into itself and

into reflections of itself. There was no movement, save a

dive of decision and an ellipse,

a flurry of feathers and a sleeping.

The whirlwind whispered;

the child threw the stone into the cave;

shards shattered, spilling sagery on the earth;

the spiral was begun;

the memory was forgotten.

The choice, submitted, sent the soul in secrecy to

the bone gate, a passenger to be named.

Free flight fixed into form, was held up ingloriously

in hospital hands, up by blue ankles; was whacked, wrapped

warm, and cried.

The beginning of time is neither behind us nor before us,

but above us.

Being but belief, there be no time.