Five Stages

At first, you think nature. The last of the ice apples. The ducks behind the reeds. The shower of sakura petals. The sloughed snake skin. The chipped exoskeleton of the hermit crab, washed from the depths. The hairy frog, Trichobatrachus robustus, with its bone claws that retract when it intentionally breaks its toes. The deer tracks hardening under a late freeze. The Bohemian waxwings, drunk on rotting fruit.  Then you try interior. The ink stain veining through the doily. The overlooked letter. The teacup on a breakfast tray. The stack of trunks in the attic, left by a previous tenant. The sudden scent of strange perfumes as a trunk opens. Then you reach up. The kite escaping from the child’s chubby hand. The spider web across the lintel. The steeple. The hoot of the barred owl, disguised in night oak leaves. The towers’ antennae, blinking red. Then you sink to metal. The tin foil hat that keeps alien transmissions at bay.  The chimes hanging from the eaves.  The wedding candlesticks. The wrought-iron fencing surrounding the cemetery. The disk plough, left to rust in the field. The spare scissors. The jungle gym. Lastly comes light. The parallelograms of morning sun bleaching the Persian rug.  The globes of the chandelier.  The diaphanous wings of the butterfly. The livewire. The watery reflections on the lake’s shifting surface. The birthday candles. The winter solstice moon. The moment of epiphany that crackles along your spine like fingers of lightning.