JD DeHart- A Poem

Person of Faith

The voice whispers to me, all I’m used to is a whisper:

            Do you believe?

Believe like the whisper I heard in the woods when I was a child, wind through trees, twitter of insects.  I am emic and etic at the same time, a dynamic of tension.  I belong here in this Kingdom and yet I don’t.

Believe like the abandoned church in the woods, composed of broken wood, an empty pulpit, a silent congregation, and leaf-strewn pews.  It was a place I wanted to reside in.

Believe like the plush smell of the new church down the road, complete with inside baptistery

so we don’t have to go down to the creek anymore, pressing my face to the soft floor.

Believe like a circle of lights in the sky over a praying family or the story of a prophet in the Old Testament.  Or the truth behind the story, the reality of the dusty ground, the trial and the error, the pain of trying to listen to the sky, ear straining.

I will never stop believing.

JD DeHart is a writer and teacher.  His chapbook, The Truth About Snails, is available from Red Dashboard.