A Twitch of Light

All the beasts 
come snuffling to your hand.
You pet the bears and the serpents
and pat the shy outstretched hand of the orangutan
ruff up the parrot's feathers the wrong way
at which he loudly complains
and comes back for more.

So. Breathe out, cough maybe.
It didn't 
matter so much after all, did it?
Pull out the dart, and the barb remains
at a blurred purple distance under the skin
pulsing, poisoned, pretty,
permanent.

Or at least as durable as the reddened skin
which for practical purposes 
is time everlasting.
I guess you really thought 
the ark wouldn't come, or the dart wouldn't strike:
that there was something you could do
a way to change
the order of operations. Not because you ever said as much,
I don't mean that, but because of how stricken you are
now that everything has come to pass
feared and desired. (An uncharitable guru might say,
what did you think fear and desire were for, anyway?
But that's not how we roll.)

Stroke every loving creature;
let the barb do its work. A numbness
and a rush of gratitude:
a twitch of light behind the hills.