I surprise myself with where my faith lies,
hiding in the underbrush, bugs and smaller
things busy making lives but only slightly
better, bees in a hive, ants undermining
damn-near everything for shelter and storage,
food supplies. I am a believer in small things
to deliver paradoxes wrapped in irony, regularly—
it’s how life works: when the little man, or
woman, if you insist, leans to the starboard
with the rest against the captain, too light to port.
Stafford’s heron, reeds into the mud, exalts
in Spirit, has no shame nor need for explanation.
They do not fear death, cannot conceive of not
living, not adapting—our curse to seek some
everlasting life somewhere better,
someplace free of sin and worry, hate
and jealousy we couldn’t shake in this life.
I have faith in much smaller things.
drycrikjournal 