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James Tate
The Tablet
Brooke
and I were out walking in the woods
when we spotted this thick block of wood, only
we called it a tablet, because it had hundreds
of hieroglyphic-like symbols or letters carved
on it. It immediately mesmerized us and summoned
up many questions. Our first guess was that it
was some kind of religious instruction or prophecy.
But what in the world was it doing there? Just
discarded, because it was too large to lose
unintentionally. Was the person who made it
now angry and fed up with that religion? Well,
our speculations were futile because we could
never know the answers. We were giddy with our
great find and took it home and gave it a proper
place of honor. We couldn’t take our eyes off
of it all night. “I can feel some power emanating
from it,” Brooke said. “I feel it, too,” I said,
“I just can’t tell it it’s good or evil.” “Do
you think it’s safe to sleep with it in the house?”
Brooke said. “Maybe that’s why the person who
made it got rid of it. Maybe it turned on him,”
I said. “I want it to be our friend,” Brooke
said, “so we should be sending powerful love
beams to it.” “I’m beaming,” I said. We were
amusing ourselves, but we were also serious.
We shot our love beams at the tablet for at least
an hour. Then I said, “Brooke, let’s go to bed,
I’m exhausted.” She said, “You go to bed. I’ll
take the first watch. I don’t trust this thing
for a second. Get me your shotgun and the ax.”
JAMES TATE is the author of several celebrated collections of poetry,
the latest of which is Memoir of the Hawk, published by Ecco
Press.
“The Tablet” appears in our Winter
2001 issue.
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