retrospective
This was written.... gasp! FOUR years ago, and i'm only putting it up here because i think it offers an interesting counterpoint to the previous entry. i must confess that i haven't been able to look at this with a straight face ever since a friend spotted the (unintentional) Obi Wan Kenobi echo in 'You have taught me well...' Still, i shall spare everyone the usual self-flagellating criticism - not because i think particularly well of this poem, but because i'm starting to find the (possibly very Asian) tradition of pseudo-modest fishing-for-compliments-disguised-as-self-deprecation ('Sorry, but the cookies are really not crispy enough...') and the consequent assurances from politely-appreciative friends ('No, that's not true.... yum yum, they're very crispy...') slightly annoying. Honest critique from all of you is, however, more than welcome.Prayer
Humankind’s instinct is to search for patterns,
Impose them, if need be, on the random
Splash of extravagant starlight
Spilling across the night.
We seek to order chaos, and if
That is not quite possible, ma’am,
We do apologise for this unfortunate
Turn of events – may we suggest, ma’am,
That you try again some other…..
But we have no patience for the long haul,
In the long run we’re all dead, and
What good is knowledge if you’re not
Alive to taste its fruit?
I want to believe.
Help thou my unbelief.
The Pilgrim Fathers read the earth,
Scanned the mottled blue of hope-new skies
For signs of Your divine solicitude.
They found it in the simplest
Fall of autumn leaves
Russet on the forest floor.
Please, Sir, I want some more.
But when that ‘more’ comes,
Bang in the middle of my placid life,
I, petulant child,
Question its provenance,
Will not accept Your gift,
If gift it is at all.
What then is belief?
Help thou my unbelief.
For faith means hope,
And hope is the serpent
I have learnt to distrust.
You have taught me well,
Master of my life.
So I see, in this sudden
Conflagration of patterned unlikelihoods,
Nothing but the purely coincidental.
Your burning-bush party tricks
No longer leave me in wide-eyed wonder.
So I tell myself.
Yet You, knowing conjuror,
Stand, smirking, in the darkness of the wind.
Why then this belief?
Give me my unbelief.
posted by eothen @ 1:40 AM
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