04 April 2018

The Beginnings of Faith



Morning, Looking East over the Hudson Valley from the Catskill Mountain
Morning, Looking East over the Hudson Valley . . . . by Frederic Edwin Church  (1848)


Faith
began like
sunrise, with
dark-delicate awakening
filtered through sky-wide mist 
so perfect it must have practiced before
today’s mystery play and yesterday’s.

Waking, I touch sunrise with forehead                         Hindsight
and hands while it caresses                                      sorts through
me (and an apple tree)                                   moments before awareness
with it’s golden                                               of holidays and landscapes—
spark.                                                          before Judaism and Ram Dass,  
                                                            before Wicca and Quakers, before shoulds
                                                                    and taboos—when wooded acres
                                                                           offered pines and moss
                                                                                to wonder, offered
                                                                                    dawn and
                                                                                       spring.




Note: I disabled comments for April 2018, International Poetry Writing Month, because I am trying to write and post daily and experiment with prompts from other sites.  If you wish to make specific constructive comments, I would be delighted to exchange emails.  I also often post poems on Facebook.  Public comments will be possible here again in May. 

There was a third verse I lopped off:  

And 

why not

accept the presents?

Receive and return attention 
in an I-and-Thou relationship,
daily footbaths of gratitude.
Faith is both cause and 
effect, spiraling like air, 
flowing like blood,
enriching each
moment.




My blog poems are rough drafts. 
Please respect my copyright. 

© 2018 Susan L. Chast