Snapshot 08 February 02006

For much of the grey afternoon
the red-eyed hawk perched on the garden bench
swiveling its marvelous head

as I considered our need for God;
this longing to have faith in the unlikely, to believe
in the mathematical inevitability of miracles.

In the white laboratory we try
to locate, to weigh and measure -- not God, but our
desire for God. We believe there must be some

evolutionary imperative to allocate
our gratitude and terror to a great and supernatural
Source. Does It love us, this Creator, this Force

that we use to excuse war, slaughter,
women hidden in back rooms, the mutilation of our
children, bloody sacrifice and masochistic

ecstasy? We watch the brain's limbic
system light up with spiritual impulses and exclaim:
there! Faith on a monitor; devotion on

a computer screen. As the day dimmed
into evening, the hawk's patience was rewarded
with a plump, red-feathered finch.