Chapter 11: Ordeal

 

Alone on smooth hard stone.

No smell of pine

No laughing moon

No shadowed trees

 

Where?

Nowhere.

Someplace like a mausoleum.

An altar’s edge.

Opaque dark.

No telling how far down

Down goes.

 

Wind like evil

Prying fingers,

Lifts and pulls

Pries and digs.

But, you must want to fall

To go over this edge.

You must give in.

 

II.

Forever or a day.

Pomegranate promise

Sitting on one corner

Of this altar.

 

No dice.

 

III.

There must be a place

Beyond.

There must be a way

Through.

There must be a next

Step.

 

No pomegranate promise.

No dice.

From the edge of this altar,

I leap.