Allegorical

In the beginning, time was animal.
Instead of clocks, cocks announced the sunrise.
The night went on and on, in the dark cries
of wolves, who lapped up truth from moonlit pools.
It took forever for the vole to lose
its sight while it was hiding underground
(and so we think of sight as less than sound).
The ages of the muddy, muscled moose
were shown by its great height: tall centuries
surveyed the marshes that the glaciers made.
It fell to us, ingenious as toads,
to ask why we must wait so patiently.
By the seventh day, we had learned to count,
when all creation knew peace had run out.

Copyright © 2007 Rafael Campo All rights reserved
from The Enemy
Duke University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission