The first came loose with just a touch, and then
The next was just a breath of pollen.
The third took longer, made of sunsets spread
Along a rocky coast. The fourth was open
When you arrived. The fifth lay down a den
Of mulch and mushroom, a tangled maze of dead
Roots, blackened beds, broken desks, cables cut
In ages past. The sixth: an altar, where prayers

Unmade still smoked like candles snuffed. The air
Grew thinner then. The doors behind you shut.
The way ahead was all there was. Rough squares
Were smoothed to spheres for centuries, and there,
The sixth undone, the daunting seventh stood:
A game of chess assembled in the dark.
The eighth through tenth were windings in a wood,
At first all pine, then oak, then birch. A spark

You struck to see ignited leaves. They burned
For days, until horizons showed themselves.
You found unlikely treasures might be earned
In heaps of ash. The next to come: Long shelves
Of books, though they contain a single word.
You had to read them all. It made no sense
Because the letters, strange, remained unheard,
Unpronounceable and thus immense.

Then lifetimes went to clear the rest, the glade,
The plaster masks, a tide of stars, a floor
Of clouds in storm, the bad-dream parts that made
Up spindle, spring, keyway, bolt, and door.
At last, the long, astonishing shadow
You cast across the fields in the first light,
Your shapes and lines, the signs that greet your sight,
Because you’re free, with nowhere left to go.