February 16: Faith and Trust, Averill Curdy, "The God of Inattention"

Yes, I continually struggle with faith and trust.  I think it's part of being a religious person.  You simply have dark moments of the soul, where God seems to turn His back on you.  Without faith, I would have given into despair a long, long time ago.

And then, the sun breaks through the clouds for a few minutes.  Sends you something beautiful.

Saint Marty lives for those moments.

The God of Inattention

by:  Averill Curdy

After the trumpets, after the incense   

There were nights insomnia fathered gods   

I then rejected as too angry or distracted,   

Or whose appetite for submission revealed   

Their own lack of faith.   Say our names,   

All synonyms for trust. Others spoke   

In sugared paradox:  To know is to know   

All. To not know all is not to know. To know   

All requires that you know very little,   

But to know that little you have to know   

All . And for a while, it's true,   

I burned in the dark fires of ambivalence,   

My attention consumed like oxygen.   

I'd wake up tired, as I had with the married man   

Whose strictures and caprice begat,   

And begat, and begat, and begat   

My love for him, harvesting the same      

Silence from my bed. Who listens   

To my penitential tune? Who accepts   

My petitions for convenient parking,   

For spring, for the self illuminated   

Across a kitchen table, for . . . for   

Fortitude? I've heard a voice, I'm sure,   

Advising me to drop this sentimental farce.   

Only to hold the smoke of their names   

Again in my mouth I'd resurrect   

The dead, or adopt the gods orphaned   

By atheists, except the gods they've made   

From disbelief no one's faith could tolerate.   

Refusing to make the same mistake   

Just once, I've cried out to the dark   

Many names, most given up as routinely   

As the secrets of friends. If you're a cup      

Will my lips profane your own? If a comb      

Will I feel your teeth against my neck?      

If a wall I will be darker than your shadow.   

And if a door I will unlatch you, letting in   

All the little foxes from the vineyard.