Let’s Suppose

Let’s suppose the atheists are right,

that this is it, so make the most of it,

no afterlife for the soul to enter into

after all, after all of this.  Just a farm

for worms we’d be, a dirt nap lasting

an eternity, or else incinerated into ashes

for deposit into urns to place on fireplace

mantels or, wishes for ashes, to fling  

from the cottage dock on the lake or

over her rose beds that grew prize-

winners at the fair two years running.

So, supposing that be true, I wonder would

it ever tell in full of you and untold others

just like you who’d never hesitate to help

the helpless, rescue blindly at great peril,

comfort out of greater love for greater good.

Or tell us how a poet-sculptor only twenty-

three could gaze into a block of stone to see

to life the suffering mother cradling her

beloved son, stunned sorrow in her face and

near-despair revealed in one hand dropping,

but with fingers slightly upward, heavenward.

Or to listen to the chorus of the gospel hymn

“Deep River” sung by dirt-farm folk in red-clay

Georgia bursting forth with such a yearning

for the crossing over Jordan that they feel

the waters rushing cool against the bottoms of

their tired feet and on the other side can spy

the Campground tents, the tents their very own

they see, already pitched and waiting there. 

The stones cry out, all other things break apart.