Prophecy

Milk writes its sad signature in a glass
through which the rest of your life is illuminated,
like a manuscript that has been labored over
and ornamented, driving one monk to madness
and three others to blindness.
This is not what you supposed or intended,
but it is what you read from your open palm,
from the way the sheets on your bed wrinkle,
from the prophecy of crows,
from the reading of leaves rotting into the earth.
Some day you may return here
to try to understand how it came to be,
but the elder stones will not discuss
their runes in the light of day.