POETRY: Calcutta To Cannon Beach by Nathaniel Lee Hansen
I have His darkness—I have His pain—I have the terrible longing for God. (Mother Teresa)
That at times this future saint
could not sense her Lord while sweating
words with pen read as a revelation
to me, disclosed that she was human, too.
God’s omnipresence still too far—boils, sores,
and scars too near, so faith meant treading
the waters of theology’s raw mystery,
their paradox: belief is doubt
that we can know with certainty.
And so I cup the ocean with my hands,
though fingers leak, dry, then crack.
Yet for a moment, I can clutch the ocean
with my makeshift bowl, taste
the salt my everyday eyes cannot see.
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