Poetry Tuesday: We Need, We Men and Women, Wanting Much

WE NEED, WE MEN AND WOMEN, WANTING MUCH

We need, we men and women, wanting much;
A breakfast bun, a hand nearby, a breath,
And quicker answers to the mad questions
Buzzing our quiet times, distracting us.
From nothing we came, but what does that tell us?
What nothing is nothing, what kind of nothing
Do we claim as true origin and home?
Chance tossing up sunsets by emergence,
Waltzing with time to spin out symphonies?
Do higher emergent realities
Need strong actors to set them first spinning,
Or did water leap into being alone,
Hydrogen and oxygen attracted
To each other through near sexual moves,
And one day, voila!  Water born, cold, wet,
Full of all life, language, and brain would need?
What imagination and faith is required
To believe in nothing nothing.  But still,
Its mystery all around.  It’s an ocean
We sit in, our planet and lives islands
In vast seas, small libraries of knowledge
Floating in oceans of long horizon.
What we know is real enough, I suppose,
But what interests me is the water out there.
Perhaps this life is a rehearsal after all,
A long preparation for sailing seas
That we can’t go to until we finish here.
If you long to sail, learn to tie knots in ropes.
Get strong, get open, get wisdom, and soon.
Though it cost all you have, run up your sails.
Sacred texts are gifts, blueprints of sailing,
But will their ship designs stand the tempest?
Is the water out there what we think it is?
God only knows, but He’ll judge us anyway.
Or will He?  Perhaps forever judges
Souls as oceans judge a ship’s worthiness.
“Will it sail?” being the only question.

© 2012 Jeff Berryman