Cause-Effect

CAUSE-EFFECT

I can’t find the dominoes, 

but if you’re enamored with the science

of how this here can topple even that 

all the way over there, 

take this flashlight and go 

at night into the slash of woods 

behind the house. In the beam

of battery-operated illumination 

the monsters show themselves 

as the shadows of a doubt cast

by an oak tree in moonlight. Having 

tipped them (with the fear they usher)

over, next to fall is the wilderness 

they used to inhabit, or what was left 

of it. And since you now know 

what’s out there, wonder plinks down 

with a little click, and then, at last,

worship, which is all you had

to offer the one able to fend off

the monsters which kept to the wilderness

in the slash of woods behind

the house, the presence

you could never quite put a finger on

but which flickered round the others

like the lightning bugs 

who only show themselves 

when it’s dark enough to see.