In that dream, I watched the funnel writhe
above the green ridge that was the edge of my child’s world,
incredulous. Concluding it was real,
I’d gather father, mother, brother
to lead them to the basement. There,
I used a stool to peer through a window:
The single, imminent funnel had transformed itself
Into several tiny ones, smudges, or threads
that unraveled on a far-distant horizon.
Endowed with telescopic vision,
I watched these little funnels, trying to understand,
and still I try. Was it God on the horizon,
bearing down on us, to punish our faithlessness?
Or was it something else, that in the moment of my fear
reversed itself, beginning a withdrawal,
dividing itself into wriggling worms
that only wished to bury themselves in the horizon,
like any small animal hoping to evade a curious child,
taking its mysteries back to its burrow?
Say this.
Say these things are one and the same –
the anger of an offended God
and the blind motions of worms
that twist in a spadeful of soil,
seeking the safe moisture of earth.