Light at the End

Heaven earned, I remember thinking,
my journey to the brilliant light beyond
awarding me one last stroll along the tree-
lined trail I knew so well. There towered
my tree-beard friends in their fashionable
raiments, the whitetail moms and their fawns
grazing beneath chorusing orioles, jays, larks
and wrens perched in staggered pews overhead—

Where the tunneled copse ended,
eternal light glowed. I said my goodbyes
to the little brown trout in the bordering stream,
the airy damsel flies, even the mosquitoes,
my resourceful summer adversaries,
as I prepared to meet my loved ones
assembling ahead in a heavenly reception line
leading to the very feet of the Almighty.

So blinding, that light I encountered! Tears of joy
I could feel coursing down my cheeks—of which
by then I should have been dispossessed of:
a trifling thought I cast aside as my vision cleared.
From the shine emerged a garlic-breathed pretender
beaming an opthalmoscope into my eyes as she
pronounced me alive, if not fully well, her summary
nod suggesting I seek salvation elsewhere.