Hidden Opportunity
By Roy Dean Doughty
Written 7/7/08
This ivy’s trunk, as thick as a man’s girth,
Is both self-supported and self-strangled
By its own subsidiaries, which are mostly
Hidden by the glossy, outer flourishings
Of its leaves. The whole of the plant is
Interwoven with the tall hedge’s varieties
Of dense shrubberies and dwarf trees,
So that its tapestries appear and disappear
Like the colors of heaven, creating a deep
Forest for the wandering vision, whose pathways
All lead inward. In here, down here,
In the under-formations, the sounds of the Cross
And the Book slip far away into the distance,
As the Sky-Father’s black iron barrier dissolves
Into pulse-throb and birdsong. And because we have
Ears to hear, the high weirdness of all that begrudging
Lizard-love gives way to a green jostling
Of interior tongues — slithery, swift —
From which the word “dragon” emerges.
We read the letters as we would gaze
Upon a living creature, stock-still as iron,
But breathing, breathing, and illuminated along its
Alien skin by spots of pale blue light shot through
With so many other subtler, more crinkly
Colors that it is difficult to tell which is
The true one. The dragon stares at us.
And for a long time, we stare back,
Too shocked by the silence and by the ivy’s
Primal rawness to speak. And what would
We say? “Give us two virtues: The first,
Your instinct. The second, the ability to trust
It.” These would be boons worth receiving,
Even if from a dragon, twin fires that might
Mollify the iron and forge into something far
More faithful our stubborn and ferocious human hearts.
