As If

Detail From The Adoration of the Magi

Hieronymus Bosch

Metropolitan Museum, New York 

As If

It was as if

We were climbing out

Of a great cave

Through mud,

Through clouds of swifts

And swallows

Past travelers and trains,

Past ones who wished

To stay where they were

And keep us there, too

Past blindness

That hid our eyes from ourselves

We climbed

Into the silence

Never rea…