God’s Light at Panther Creek Falls, April 2016

As published in Appalachian Review

What do you believe in, I ask. I’m afraid 
he’ll say God 

in Heaven, the Pope, ten thousand saints maimed 
or murdered. 

He looks back – he is leading us through bleached sun, 
trees bearing buds 

too raw to survive an errant frost, toward something 
yet unnamed 

he claims to love.     Nothing, he says. 
I wish he would

exalt divine geometry, the angle at which that lightbeam strikes 
the canopy 

& shatters – starstuff made scant shards scattered 
over bloody Georgia clay. 

What do you believe in, he asks. The question is good-
will, but still

I long to name the nameless. I part my lips, but no 
words come; see

that’s the point of hymns. How sweet,
to sing homage 

to nights so blue and days 
so bright 

no gospel could 
do them justice.