As children we are taught
connecting the dots
as an exercise more in
     counting
than in abstract thinking;

To apply the term’s more
     metaphoric
use is not, strictly speaking,
encouraged
in children of the modern world.

Yet there will always be those who
cannot shake this filter after their workbook,
who can just as easily glance at a
page of numbered black points
and say,
that is a boy with an ice-cream cone
as can stare at the night sky and exclaim
I see the Big Dipper! or
the dappled blue of day with
a Dragon diving at a giant tree …

This unfortunately might lead to
I saw a face in that puddle and she was sad or
That shadow is a skeleton waiting for me to fall asleep

Most children have these tendencies
     drummed out
before they have achieved double digits,
which is convenient to those who would profit
on society’s inobservance of patterns,
shapes forming out of dark collusions,
shadows in metaphor becoming dragons.

I recall being quite young when I first stared
at a Map Of The World
and marveled,
“South America fits beside Africa!”
and although I attended a Christian school
I was made aware of a fabled
     Supercontinent
told it was an idea that scientists had but
no real proof

I was thirteen when I asked the Pastor
during Confirmation class
“How can God create people deep in Africa
who will never see a missionary
nor know of The Bible
(much less learn to read)
if that means they’ll go to Hell?
Why make a soul exist if it can
never get to Heaven?”

If they are truly meant
for The Kingdom Of Heaven,
they will know The Lord Jesus in
their hearts.

no real proof

I was sixteen when I asked that same Pastor
during his weekly home visit—
my father had opted not for exorcism but
this much more extended torture
after learning of my witchcraft—
“The Bible is the one and only true word of God?
How do we know?
Because it’s in The Bible?”

That is what is known as
The Divine Paradox,
it is at the heart
of faith.

No real proof

As arduously slow as a drifting land mass
as sure as the creeping grind of tectonic plates
formed volcanic mountains,
deep sea fissures

my eyes connect the dots,
the shadows become real.