By Richard Mather
When God's thick cloud closed
over the world, a state of dark
dissolution shrouded
the oasis of Junaynah.
And the Living Tree
shed its fabled fruits
and delicious flowers.
Apples, roses, yellow-petalled
lemon berries lay unbranched
and unloved on
Adanah’s floor. (Even Satan wept.)
It was six days.
Then on the seventh God cried
for the old ways, the old religion.
The thick cloud lifted. Dissolution
was withdrawn.
But the tree’s spirit
was misshapen, its sap bedevilled
by bad blood. Of body, branch,
root and leaf the tree
was blackcrook'd,
beyond redemption,
except for axe and fire.
That was my first vision.
But the holy tree of my second vision
(the tree in that other world
& guarded by the flame of the sword)
began to green bloom,
strength gathering limbs,
new life brimming sap.
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