Revelation 2:17 – a poem by Dean Abbott

Revelation 2:17

What if an incantation of animal names
was the only necessary magic?

What if freedom fell from hearing 

Dove
Vole
Horse
Tortoise
Grouse
and
Heron?

What if midway through
our recitation we
discovered ourselves
outside
the locked gates:

Mortgage
Degree
Buy
Entertain
and 
Hurry

What if through the deer’s leaping white like a 
flame, the fox’s laugh in autumn,
the call of the barred owl reminding
us of death’s slow approach we
knew ourselves again?

What if we plunged our dusty hands into the
river of what is given and pulled
from her a stone, white, which
when turned revealed our own
forgotten name?

Dean Abbott is a writer, poet and pastoral counselor living in Kentucky. He can be contacted through http://www.deanabbott.com or on X @deanabbott.