Faith, Challenged

Dust-choked homes and churches,
wrench faith from human hearts,
from foreclosure, starvation, hopelessness —
to places beyond the reach of pestilence. ~ Dixon Hearne in Native Voices, Native Lands

Life at its most wretched
opens us, berates us, chastises us
enough to grasp for better,
for hope, for faith.
Life at its most wretched
opens hearts for help from anywhere,
from things we fail to comprehend
or even lend a touch of credence.
When nothing works, hopelessness rampant,
then an icon — surely it has mass, substance,
to be so palpable, so central —
an icon of belief, of hope, of faith is.
And in desperation we latch on,
clinging to what we knew as myth,
knowing it's the mooring to allow
our grasping possibility.