Writing in the cold night-wrapped garage under a single light
clamped precarious to rough lumber hung on pegboard
over table meant for working wood, mind working instead.
Hard surfaces, bare and cracked concrete, cold cheap tools,
dust and blown in leaves, dead insects,
black widow spiders stealthy hidden in dark places.

The cold is close, biting at ungloved finger tips,
scratching to get further in, through thin walls
to reach some organic and pliant space, of flesh and doubt,
where it may infuse to a depth physical – imminent –
to grasp and pull back out through the wall
a flailing homebody, miserable excuse for an adventurer,
into spaces liminal and transcendent.
One light to hold back the claw and tooth of the dark
black against the window, empty even of stars.

Writing on an island in the sea of infinite mystery –
a light, a wall, and a spider –
protection from the encroaching sea-filled blackness
flimsy barriers against the chill waves of the cosmos and the divine
where exist no sharp edges, curved surfaces, or idyllic scenes.
No theology, religion, creed, or dogma tonight –
just what was, is, and forever shall be.

Portland, Oregon – February 29, 2016

Inspired by Karl Rahner in Foundations of Christian Faith (1978, p. 22):

“In the ultimate depths of his being man knows nothing more surely than that his knowledge, that is, what is called knowledge in everyday parlance, is only a small island in a vast sea that has not been traveled.  It is a floating island, and it might be more familiar to us than the sea, but ultimately it is borne by the sea and only because it is can we be borne by it….Hence the existential question for the knower is this: Which does he love more, the small island of his so-called knowledge or the sea of infinite mystery?”