November

Issue 50

This childhood stone that flawless fit my hand Has turned with years to gently seeping sand That squeezes through my closed and whitened fist. The grains escape, and dust my hairy wrist. They puddle on the earthen floor below And with conspiring draft remorseless go.   I thought I knew His rules and perfect laws I thought I knew so much, but now I pause. I thought I knew His name; I was so sure. He’s nameless now; my crumbling stone grows pure. My day with Him lived backward—first the night Of certainty, and late doubt’s dawning light. This hell is splendor, and this splendor, hell. For cursed am I, and blessed, and high, and fell, To live with doubt and faith in equal parts— A single man, with two unyielding hearts. Though doubting not that He is aught but true, Nor trusting what I know or thought I knew. That so-called faith, presumption, leaves my hand, And leaves me happy to not understand His ways. Now free to read no holy mind Some sudden magic in my hand I find. A purple glow burns through my slackened fist— The sandstone has become an amethyst. I pry my fingers from the fiery stone And thank Him for the beautiful unknown, Now questions form and answers dissipate And in the purple light I see a gate Whose words above, in chiseled granite gray, Read “Knowers not, but seekers pass this way.”