Life claws its way upward

Through hard ground

Gnaws its way upward

Through the flesh and bones of other animals

Cuts its way upward

Through forest and wood

Digs its way upward

Through sand and stone

Burns its way upward

Melting pathways through the world

Builds its way upward

Wood and glass and stone and metal

All so that we can stand for a moment

At the top of the world

Until something beneath us breaks free

Who hides in light

Behind the halo

Who stands in darkness

Casts no shadow

We are the Universe and so

When we look at the Universe

The Universe looks at the Universe

When you look into two mirrors that face one another

You see an infinite number of reflections

How many reflections

Does the Universe see?

Infinity to the power of infinity

I saw a lightning strike

It was close by

In the clouds

They were soft grey innocent like a

Tabula rasa

And the sky wrote on them

One bolt of bright lightning

Moving swiftly from right to left

There was a sound

Like a snake or a flame

A hiss

Exactly simultaneous with

The appearance of the lightning

Three seconds later

I heard the thunder

What did I hear

When I saw the lightning?

I can still remember it

The moment that I lost my faith

I was just sitting in a classroom

When I decided to think it through

I threw Pascal's Wager to the wind

Held instead Occam's Razor

And thought, if God really loves us

These are all just empty threats

And how much else has been a lie?


I still thought there must be a God

And so I looked through all the books

And everything I read rang true

And everything I read rang empty

The books all sounded just the same

How could I choose one of these Gods?

I thought that either all of them were right

Or all of them were wrong.


And so I thought,

There is no God.

That answered almost all my questions,

But I felt a sense of loss

I had always been promised Heaven

Though I felt somewhat relieved

No one looking over my shoulder

No one judging my deepest thoughts

Suddenly the world felt colder


And even though I felt such wonder

That we'd got here on our own

And even though I felt so free

I had never felt so alone


And to this day once in a while

I ask in my mind all the Gods

To show me a specific sign

So they can reach me if they want

The signs I've seen all point to

The idea that we all are One

The God we seek is

The sum of our collective consciousness

In harmony with the Universe as a whole


But every time I think I see a sign

I remember in the back of my mind

How easy it is to see

Patterns in the sand

                    the stars

                    the static

And fill in the gaps

With a solid shape

Only the sharpest razor may divide

The shape back into grains of sand

The constellation back into its stars

The bolt from the blue back into static

God into the gaps in our knowledge

The empty spaces that fill our souls

With awe and mystery and wonder

I am the world

I love the fool

One open flower

On top of a hill

I am the fool

I love the world

Though she is iron

She is my gold

O

Where do I go

I don't know

No matter where I go

I am standing in the centre

Of my horizon

How I cling to the Earth

With my hands and feet

The dove may lend me her wings

But I lack her sense

Of direction

Faith to fly through the storm

Two wings

One blue horizon

No land in sight