DONKEY

DONKEY

I stumbled upon a timeless communion with an aged donkey.

Already compromised by illness,
I sat on my wobbly three-legged camping stool.

We met eye to eye, transfixed and still.

Who knows how long we dwelled together

before I was obliged to pull myself away

and resume ordinary life.

 

Perhaps we are still there now.

 

How can I tell you what I beheld in the depthless black eye

of that white-haired fellow-being?

 

I found something more captivating than the night sky

in the deep wilderness

brilliantly dense with stars.

But it was so unassuming it could have easily been over-looked.

 

Imagine a fullness so complete

that it was larger than the universe itself,

All that ever was and will be,

burbling yet blissfully peaceful.

My life, yours

all the struggles and striving of us two-leggeds were at home.

 

Had that animal existed forever?

Witnessed everything?

Before the big bang,

before and after God?

 

I sometimes wonder what her unwavering eye saw in mine.

 

That elder donkey was approaching her immanent threshold

as naturally as she was shedding her coat for a season she would never know.

 

My illness seemingly progressing, I contemplate my own threshold.

I recall that episode,

so seamless and simple at the time.

 

But now I won't let it alone.

I grab for it.

I want it back.

I want to swim into that eye.

Or to be that absolute totality on four sturdy legs,

unconcerned about the future, the past,

without the desire for answers, without regrets.

 

Somehow the juicy eternity in that now-dimmed eye must be reachable,

though the eye itself no longer shines.

Can I find my way there?

Will it claim me?
 

--Molly Hunt, July 2013