The blue eyeball

The grove, and this huge eucalyptus tree
leaning over me. In the clasp of two
saber-shaped leaves heaven looked like
the gaze of God peering through the eye of a needle.
The sky’s air-intense as a rare bead of clear
cobalt sea-glass—God looked straight through,
through me, as though my transparency
were something he craved.

And then, rising from stillness, the air
began breathing, began rearranging
the leaves. Oh, they closed—God’s eyelids.
Clouds arrived in their dark boats over
the waves of hills. My view of heaven
was shut. But then, in a thin wire
of lightning, he spoke into me the promise—
his view of me will not be held back
by clouds, two leaves, a forest.

Luci Shaw