A CONDITION OF DOUBT

Poem written years ago. Brought up to NOW. May be shared only if no changes are made and this site is acknowledged. May not copy without written permission of the author.

A CONDITION OF DOUBT

1. 11/27/1994

There is a season of bleakness

A condition of doubt.

I want to eradicate this relic of smallness,

Rebuild the fortress,

Make of myself

A castle of stone.

Stone doesn’t weep, doesn’t splinter,

Doesn’t echo within itself.

It holds steady…

But I cannot kill it

This doubt, this small uncouthness, pain of fear.

I cannot be a murderer,

Cannot take my eyes from its plain face:

Quavering, ashamed,

But real.

Who am I? What will I do?

One day the words will be rearranged.

Today I need to see doubt as food

Ingest it, feel its weight.

Small and dense but worthy.

A kind of sustenance, after all.

2. 2/? /1995

I’ve held steady

The chant of truth through turmoil, the

Continuity beneath harsh words, opposition;

God beneath the quarreling feet.

Raised voices, harsh voices, troubles, doubt: I’ve seen them all.

A still, blue flame

Keeps me detached, though no less passionate.

Why pray, chant, or meditate?

Why do anything at all?

Won’t life act as itself

No matter what we do?

Still, I need to hum, to fast, to dance, to pray,

To release doubts as birds aflame,

As fire to meet with ALL.

3. 11/26/2016

Who’s to know what it all means, or if it means anything.

I once knew a nurse who had served in Vietnam.

She wore a necklace which said, “It don’t mean nothin’!”

Her way of living one day, sometimes one minute at a time.

Her way of being present, of radical acceptance of the now.

Her way of not doubting.

All praise to those who love, those who quarrel, those who doubt, and those who live.

Copyright Suzanne 2016