Leap of Faith by Diane Wahto

Leap of Faith

 

The back yard, crisscrossed with paths you have created

with found bricks and dried mud, opens breathing space

for magic, spreads out beyond the wood fence across

the alley to infinity. I walk to the back gate, new moss

under my feet, in the warm sun of a late spring morning,

through blooms that left us impatient with their coy malingering.

 

On the window sill, succulent leafy stems

of kalanchoe turn their heads to the stream

of late afternoon sun, brilliant just before

it disappears in the rose-orange sky, more

oil painting than an exhibition of nature’s

synchronized dance, a circadian surety

 

that we never doubt or question. Yet

Kierkegaard says of belief if we have no doubt

we cannot believe. He never looked into your face

when dusk mutes the blaze of each bright day’s

progress into summer, and I know, certain

as the sun will rise, that I doubt in vain.

~ Diane Wahto

Diane Wahto, a retired Butler Community College English instructor, lives with her husband, and two dogs in Wichita. Her three children and five grandchildren live in Lawrence and Shawnee, Kansas. Recently, her poems “The Conspiracy of Coffee” and “After the Storm” were published in Active Aging.

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