Don’t Believe

Don’t Believe 
...along the roadside of your belief 
the advertisers, the marketers, 
the profiteers of misdirection, 
the snake oil salesman’s pitch. 
 
...on the cobbled row of wise men 
those most to be pitied— 
the sleepers, doubters, skeptics, naysayers, deniers 
or a certain man’s shadowed hanging form. 
 
...on highways of jeering crowds 
your bottom line of want midst 
taunters, tempters, mockers, falsifiers, and weepers— 
or the drumbeat of beating breasts. 
 
...your cul-de-sac of despair 
Its bewilderment as companion, 
perpetual meditation as end or 
a final resting place for hope. 
 
For this, too, was a day the Lord had made 
for you who 
 
believe in 
 
...that narrow lane of immutable, immovable truth, 
Marys not so contrary and Cyrenes passing by, 
lilies who spin and toil not, and 
blackberry winter’s passing. 
 
...dawn, your destination’s end past which 
stones roll heavy upon the earth 
and dead among living 
seek the living among the dead. 
 
...an ending as beginning  
where listless, lifeless linens lay found  
while the gardener greets his mourners   
peering into an empty, cavernous tomb of ceaseless 
 
hope.