An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given it…
Even if Love squirmed
and groped under my laboratory microscope,
or so much as blinked in my rearview mirror;
even if Grace crawled down my chimney
with a toboggan and gifts and reindeer,
or came stapled and wrapped and dated
and stamped in a fact;
even if God Himself tattooed his name
in cursive across the earth’s atmosphere,
even if He jumped out of my closet and put an end to my fear,
even so: commonsensical, down-to-earth reasoning still stands
to explain the Survivalism growling behind every blushing,
ornamented Love Thing; still stands to expound on
the synaptic brain twitch, trick-of-the-nerves Mechanism
grinding behind every one of the Soulish,
Violets in Springtime,
Five Fallible Senses.
I am, after all, only a man, a man of my times. I need more than signs.
Minneapolis, 2008. Read it in Geez Magazine.
