Coming out of a country where emptied houseslay open to the weather, sheep in the entry,weedy graveyards, the foxes’ cry at nighttheir only music; the bridge, the shifting planksgreased with a season’s flattened leavesas frost loosened its grasp; then on the far sidewithered grass trampled, the briar hedge where icelingered underneath—                                                      I could not have made it up:how, in the tall church beside the wide calm river,a short walk from the city walls, the poorwhose luck once seemed to have definitely run outhad made, from wooden spars and their own old clothes,the image of deliverance, the momentwhen the Virgin interfered just as the torturerwas ready to start work, or the rope broke,the reprieve made it across the slippery bridge in timeeven though the clock had been put forwardso it would come too late. Thronging the walls,these puppets of misfortune, not the natural kindlike a mad bull or a robber or evil spirits—instead,the tall tree of human revenge, dressed upto look like justice, instantly bending its branchesloaded with mercy like fruit: look at their faces,they can’t believe it’s true. But their truth holds out,as when they manufactured it themselves,the scenes of distress, their crash and agony changedinto carpentry and the needle’s deliberate work.It’s the same rough craft that made the sod cabinto defy the writ of eviction. The same bridgespanning the gully. Fear, which is everywhere,pushed back, and those truths, that were nearly toldat the wrong moment, were able to wait—just as tonight the parent climbing the stairsafter three warnings feels the brush of her sleeve,swallows back the word that can’t be recalled if spoken,and goes quietly down again.