Should you and I want to discuss
the ins and outs of our belief
(how one way suits and others don’t),
let’s keep it to the point, and brief,
and leave those things like faith behind.
For faith and reason do not meet;
the one without the other fills
quite different needs: pure faith exists
to carry us between effects
for which we find no logic’s cause.
And reason? That’s the evidence
that each will use to prove their case
(and often, when intents diverge,
can point so many different ways
and then make liars of either side.
But you and I, unless we hate,
can talk about our firm beliefs;
and find perhaps some middle ground
where our perceptions may give way
to solid ground, instead of air.
But hate? What good is that to us,
if what we dream we can achieve
is something more than us and them,
beyond the blame we both should share,
some kind of balance, some small peace?
Let’s talk, and leave such fools behind
that would become what they despise;
instead, let’s listen for a while
and let our voices, strained with shouts,
take time to heal before we speak.
15 SEP 2008
