Faith

I want to write about faith,

   About the way the moon rises

      Over cold snow, night after night,

 Faithful even as it fades from fullness,

   Slowly becoming that last curving and impossible

      Sliver of light before the final darkness.

 But I have no faith myself

   I refuse it even the smallest entry.

 Let this then, my small poem,

   Like a new moon, slender and barely open,

      Be the first prayer that opens me to faith.

David Whyte

   From Where Many Rivers Meet

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*I dream of trains*

I dream of trains

and midnight faces

and the poetic cowardice

of running away.

But, oh, the peace it brings.

I dream of waking up

to screaming children

in seats 47B

and 52A.

Their mothers reach out for them

And suddenly I am a mother.

I dream of eating dinner

with Brian, the holistic Buddhist

who only uses marijuana

to achieve enlightenment.

And the cowboy poet

sitting with his grandson in the spectating car

as we careen through Nevada.

I dream of backyards piled with trash

and graffiti so bright and mellifluous

that Shakespeare and Monet would have to resign.

I dream of the backsides of the world

where I fly past

and gawk at all the life I'm leaving.

I want to feel each mile in my hands

and never let them go.

I dream of faces in the dust

And the things the wind might say to me

If the wind ever spoke

Outside of poems.

I dream of marrying a landscape

And making beautiful children

With the effervescence of the earth

And my nose.

I dream of becoming a train

And being able to swallow the country

In a few days;

How satisfying, how sweet!

I dream of trains

And midnight faces.

And the bliss of never arriving

But spending eternity

En route.

by Christa Jeck