Two saints of diametric views
one rainy Sunday morn, did choose
to spend some time in long debate
on gods and men and life and fate;
each sought to prove his deity
more just and great (such vanity)
imagining the sad world pined
for their opinions, wrought sublime.
While neither knew the other’s gods
(or quite why they were at odds),
their hearing dulled and eyesight poor
each stood on their respective shore
with little buckets rimmed in salt
distilled from the sea, to assault
with proofs that just their deity
encompassed true salinity.
They splashed each other well enough
and neither one could be rebuffed
until both soaked through to the skin
they paused; and as the tide came in
a voice was heard above the swell
that neither knew (at least, not well)
and it said, “just act like the world
is not for man, but for the squirrels.”
Then buckets half-lost in the sand
the two saints laid down, hand in hand,
and in the fading daylight’s spark
saw the horizon’s distant arc
and gained perspective, sitting there,
the ocean in their underwear —
and laughed, because their points of view
were equal parts hogwash and truth.
Two saints went to the shore one day;
and from that beach, none went away.
