In The Absence of Miracles
Faith walks forward in the dark and calls it light
It bears no torch, only the quiet of its passing
Steps echo on cobbled stones
Guided by nothing, yet guiding all
Passing between empty streets & silent doorways
Nothing is touched, yet a trace is left.
A distant crowd shifts and the dogs' ears lift
The square is full though the streets lie bare.
It asks the townsfolk to follow.
"Oh how cruel you are!" An old man calls out.
"To ask of me a trust only a blind man might give
To beg of me a treatment only a kind man could give
You see no further than I, yet you walk as though you know that which ahead lies."
Faith steps forward; its foot a heavy gavel.
Some lower their gaze, others remain unfazed
As a familiar voice rises through the square.
Not quite his own, yet spoken as though.
With words worn smooth by many tongues before
"How cruel am I? How cruel are you?
To ask of yourself a life to no end
To walk these stones and to breathe this air
Then swear to your kin it leads nowhere.
Calling the silence proof enough,
That your demise will lead to dust.
"Better an honest dust than a promise unproved.
In the absence of miracles and mountains unmoved." A young voice cries.
"No seas have parted, no heavens have spoken.
Only old stories, the centuries have broken."
Faith leans into the square, its voice a shadow across the cobble.
"You call the dust honest, but it remembers and tells you not.
It knows the hands by which it was pressed and says it forgot.
The dust you speak of is made of fragments
Mere memories of miracles, broken up and passed down.
From Adam to me, and me to you."
The square falls silent yet again, the townsfolk are left to ponder.
Whilst echoes of old voices stir quietly beneath their feet.
And so faith moves on, with his verdict unspoken but sentence long passed.
S. Darwin