talking only to myself

can I eschew metaphor and still awaken the sacred

or abandon symbol while evoking the numinous

in such an incurious language as English?

…

is not every religion and every ineffable being

whether many gods or one jealous of our devotion

needful of the whole expanse of poetic devices?

…

even Homer gave the dawn ‘rosy fingers,’

likened warriors to fierce beasts and mourned

the wrack and ruin of the ‘holy town’ of Troy.

…

but likening a thing is not the same as a direct address

or raising conciousness of qualities too wonderful

for either metaphoric or plainly spoken words.

…

poetry can do more than elevate love and loss to art,

it is also the chief medium for expressing awe

greater even than sacred monuments built since time immemorial.

…

how then do I convey how small I felt

when I gazed at the unblinkered vastness

of the starlit sky in the Mojave desert

…

or express the emotions experienced at our children’s births,

evoke the wonder of the white-tipped alps

or the sacred stillness of a lake when its reflection merged water and sky?

…

seeking meaning for qualities we do not possess nor comprehend

neuters both praise and prayer, turning

a deaf ear to the plaintive melody of the thrush in the twilight hush.

…

perhaps the true enemy is the so-called sagacity of the aged,

the childlike wonder I once knew displaced

with cleverness masquerading as meaning and wisdom

…

the simple faith of the child long ago surrendered

to sophistication, cynicism and unwillingness

to believe, hope or dream in anything larger than myself.

…

sometimes a simple challenge exposes the paucity

of imagination, the depth of malaise and the

emotional inertia rendering language inert.

…

how should I pray when I no longer possess the belief of a child

when simple faith and the passions I once experienced have vanished

and our children’s and grandchildren’s futures seem so bleak?

…

are you there, God, or am I talking only to myself?

…