A Poem: Faith that’s True

There is so much we do by faith.
Open our eyes, step to the floor,
trusting in gravity.
Take a breath, and another again.
Walk, walk, believing we can
because we did yesterday.
Turn on the faucet, hold the kettle,
bring it to boil.
Sip and swallow, taste.
Speak. Speak all the learnt words.

There is so much we do by faith.
Fear, fear is the thief of memory,
is a shadow upon tomorrow.
Fear is like a stranger arrived,
speaking an unknown language.
Fear shakes us that we mistrust
what we thought we believed,
until it subtly intrudes
and we wake forgetting how the
chair is trustworthy,
the table with its four solid legs,
the bed and its encompassing embrace.

We are caricatures of ourselves.
Someone told us to be afraid,
so we heeded.
Someone told us
how foolhardy trust was,
and faith with its capital F,
its faultless positivity.
Someone said that faith is so blind
reality will run round it in circles.
And we believed

in the very thing that would not serve us.
How fear makes us think
we’re a step ahead,
while all the time despair is growing
and we’ve forgotten what it is
to sow in hope,
to reap in gratitude,
to count miracles and see them
propagated
by time and trust.

I will, that I continue in faith.
Apparently not achieving so much
as the digging of hands in soil.
Thanking life for a breath,
again,
the sky for rain.
Discovering all the names for sun,
knowing how a thing believed in
hangs around.
Seems to double in size
as dough left out on the windowsill,
while we smile and chat
and drink coffee together,
sweetened by cream.
Believe with me.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
May 2022

‘Put your thoughts to sleep.
Do not let them cast a shadow
over the moon of your heart.’
~ Rumi