Faith

Is the world spread with sparkling miracles
replete with depth and meaning and purpose,
or do the depths of every gem hide more facets,
each miracle setting a horizon on a superficial world?

Is love a mystery full of surprise and novelty
as fresh joy and fulfilment excite us
with each celebration of our lover's mind and body,
or are its yearnings a punishment, and the only mystery
the nature of the crime for which it is suffered?

Does every flower draw on hidden roots
which find their way in secret through more than earth
but also imagination, where every hue that tints its petals
is ultimately mined, or is the earth divided
by membranes across which only nutrients pass?

Do questions spiral and bifurcate in infinite space
into endless realms of possibility, or must enquiry halt
at the limits of a world that confines us? And if it must,
how can we bear witness to a child's tears,
and console her, and try to ease her pain
in a world we suppose incapable of cruelty?

There is no escape from sin with nothing to believe in,
and even if God resides only in the laughter of a child,
or an unexpected kindness, or the smile of our beloved,
we are saved from the inevitabilities within us.