Dan Cuddy

Escaping the Great Questions

I must lock God and Nothing in a box,
push them under the bed,
or better yet take them to the attic,
hide them among the Christmas decorations
and the suitcases used in the summer.
I can't take the EYES of God on my every
thought, word and deed.
I can't take the oppressive weight of Nothing,
a whole Universe of meaningless Nothing
leaning its heavy elbow on the top of my head.
I can't spend too many waking hours in the Great Debate
where both sides claim their respective Revelations,
but like punch-drunk boxers fight to a draw.
I can't take all the acrimony and personal depression
or the paranoia and the presence of voices---
look what happened to the Son of Sam
and Sam was a dog!
I have to take it easy,
calm myself with the normal human splitting of hairs
over maps and money,
which I hear about every day in the news.
At least history changes its cast of characters.
God and Nothing play their mime
every day, every year, every century
like some homeless souls crazy-in-the-head,
maybe benevolent, but maybe not
as galaxies and stars explode,
burn out in the whole spectrum of time.
I want to eat breakfast.
I won't enter into the Great Debate
that nobody ever really wins
except by denying the argument.
Okay, I must turn up the radio,
turn the Word of God and Silent Emptiness
off.

Devotion of Mother and Child

She lifts him up,
takes his hand,
dips it in the less than pure
but holy water,
which sits like rainwater
in a marble font.
Guiding his hand
she makes the Sign of the Cross
on his forehead, left shoulder,
right shoulder, heart.
He feels the chill, the wet,
but not the meaning yet.
They kneel below
stained-glass saints.
He notices the red, the blue
light that colors his arm, his clothes.
He’s made privy to a faith
no one outside understands.
Given a quarter
the child, with his mother’s help,
slips it into a slot.
It clinks. The sound of money.
The smell of tin.
She takes a votive candle,
spills hot wax,
that congeals, like cereal,
but it’s hot, no, warm,
as he touches it.
She lights another candle.
Profoundly
the young widow recognizes
the past, the future
in her son.
He watches the flame
in a red cup of glass.

Father Lost

Some faces that won't return
stay inside the mind for awhile
patterns in swirl tiles

From frames on a table or wall
they haunt longer

Nothing changes
the smile, the style, length of hair
the herringbone suit, that drab tie

and the silence
of looking with a tear
the sunsetting
in the corner of your eye

© Dan Cuddy