3- ☼☼☼ -I

28 4 5
                                    

When Pilgrim and the Spouse awake from bed

and step outside they're greeted by a ground

that's carpeted with verdant blades of grass,

the likes of which the two have never seen

within the Southern desert all their lives.

Nearby there is commotion, which they check

to find that almost all the village now

upon the morn is gather'd round one spot;

an alleyway in which the grass hath grown

so tall it towers over th'wooden huts                10

and seems, itself, to have a wooden skin

along its central shaft which makes its core,

around which needles green and much like grass

themselves are growing wide around the trunk

and narrowing atop the conifer

(for this is what they see but can not name

though trees of broader leaves our Pilgrim knows)

in cone-like fashion from its branching arms.


A larger man of stature reaches forth

to touch the tree, perceiving for himself             20

in disbelief at what his eyes present,

and when his fingers do caress the bark

to prove to him his eyes do not deceive

he jumps and clacks his heels speaking thus:

"It's wood! It truly is so marvellous!

A blessing from the Mother proving that

our culture is the properest of all,

and that our struggles have been worth our sweat."


At this our Pilgrim's stricken with a surge

that creeps along his spine and to his hip             30

where—taking what the Oracle bestow'd

to him those days ago fill'd with the spring's

abluting water—now he notices

the bottle weighs much lighter than it should;

uncapping lid to check th'interior,

his eye goes wide as tipping up the flask

he sees the water's gone, to which he says

to Spouse in whisper'd tone: "It must've leak'd

without our noticing, for all is gone

and this impossibility we see               40

is like to be th'result of magic drops

that seep'd into the earth to fertilize

the soil and create the life we see

in all its grandeur and its majesty."


To which the Spouse replies: "Then all is true

about the Owner's words of what the spring

is able to accomplish when applied

to earth; I had believ'd it all a lie

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