Greg Huteson

The Doubter’s Questions

What evidence was there in the calm
of that morning, that shop-shuttered morning,
of the frame that held this island
in its ordained place in the map
of the trickster ocean with its calms
and tirades, its corals and tall volcanic peaks?
 
What proof that the walls around the church 
set back from loosely aligned gutters and barrels
of kitchen waste on a quiet back road	
hid something more than a hall where the quick
and the lame or the curious sat and rested
on slat benches on terrazzo floors?

What claim was there that the days of miracles,
of mats taken up, of crutches discarded,
had not ceased, but a river of pure water
holy for healing flowed through the broad aisle
of the building before fanning slowly
across the steps to pool on lopsided walks?

What power for the healing of the nations,
the healing of this nation with its vipers and kraits,
its parched paddy lowlands, was in these waters
so quiet they weren’t noticed by neighbors
still at their breakfasts or walkers pleased
with the day’s crisp light and the palms’ shade?

What words leaked between the opaque panes
and the scarred jambs of the church
before pausing to whirl in side alleys
like rumors half heard and half believed
among planks, cats, and odd paper scraps
that were bleached to near illegibility?

What marvel was there in the dove-flecked sky
that caught those words--at least one or two--
to toss them over the dull red bricks
of the earth god’s shrine with the eccentricity
of kites? It was beauty like this we found
hard to believe early on the first day of the week.

Greg Huteson is the author of the chapbook, These Unblessed Days (Kelsay
Books, 2022), and recently his poems have appeared in THINK, the Alabama
Literary Review, Blue Unicorn, and The Honest Ulsterman, among other
journals. He lives in Taiwan.