The Body Is a Divining Rod

Claire McAllister

Cottonwood towering, pollendown snowing in the sun:
Broken gates and beyond, meadow vibrant with dock:
Sweet Ghost I had else though delusion, I saw how You
Open the Elysium gates no hand unlocks.

Watched nothing but streams over pebbles all that summer.
Fool! bent to light like the hazel twig's rod;
For I grew to know to idle so, thought-quiet, eye-wide, ends
Not straying by oneself but betraying one's Self to one's God.