Reconsidering a Definition

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Reconsidering a Definition


“What if the warm hope denied should be the truth after all?” — George Macdonald


So maybe faith is something more 

than chance though less than certainty, 

a state-of-being categorically before 

the cards are flipped but after the finality 

of betting all the pot. It is the groom

who stares at ribboned doors to wait,

if be it doubtfully, on things unseen, 

the fugitive enamored by a shuttered light


as testifying to his need for reassurance

             that haven isn't an allusion of the mind.

It is a hope most manifest in fickle ones

like me—the ones who deal in 'shoulds'

because the 'wills' have proven slippery,

who testify to the unprovable exist-

ence of a dormant organism, largely

underfed but still inclining to the light.

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