Just forgoten the steps.
I see littered pamphlets collecting like prayers
On the side of the road.
Some just try them as one-way tickets to God,
Some throw them to the wind,
Hoping people find the spirit
Embedded in their incantations, in fate.
I have discarded each and every one.
You can't tell me that a formula
Will find me heaven.
We all know Crazy Mary in this town:
She curses at the cars that blur
Beside her steady daily walk.
It takes hours, the syncopated rhythm
Of step-step, step-step,
And yet she knows that nobody driving
Littering 12 step religion programs
Or driving on the fast track
Can reach God as fast as she can.
Yet, even her familiar cries
Which I know are echoing in the holier ears
Pass harmlessly through mine.
Like walkers, I am stranded
From the automated motion of cars.
I can not drive in atheistic confidence toward death.
But I have not found the right way to walk,
I cannot syncopate my steps to beat direct to God,
Cannot force my soul to heed the scattered sidewalk preachers.
Lacking either choice,
A person must stand stagnant on the road
And wait to catch the whim of traffic, be beaten or carried,
Or force myself ot walk
And hope that life and rhythm find my steps.
Crazy Mary knows the lyrics
To the faith-song. I know how simply
One could pick up at the chorus.
I could as easily thumb the pamphlets,
Or thumb the air at traffic, calling
For the easy and soulless solution.
But the child walking near me
Fumbles on the road, tripping dangerously near traffic,
Rights himself, and dances righteously again.
There is something pure in his choice, his cadence.
He doesn't consciously mimic Mary,
He stil cannot read.
Faith is more natural than these powers,
It's as instinctual as the human drive to walk.
I haven't lost my faith
So much as tripped and lost my natural step.
I think too deeply now about each time I tread,
Worry about the angle I press toe to tar,
Instead of looking forward,
Simply walking.
