Redemption (2001)

 

Redemption

 

We are all created by degrees now

Formed from smallest particles

Linked together like chain mail

Fine-tuned as nuclear reactors

And if there has ever been a hand

As we can comprehend the ideal hand

Inside of me, endlessly tinkering

Well, I have never seen it.

 

Then, am I to believe myself blind?

Gouge out my eyes

In hopes of improving reception to divine prophecy?

This is a far cry

From rabbit ears and satellite dishes.

We are searching for better technologies

In our heartbeats

In circadian rhythms of breathing

In a spiritual awareness of each other that

We have, until this moment, been unaware of.

 

And we draw breath

 

I have conjured you like voodoo

To sit here beside me

To speak to me of floods, and falls and

Armageddon

Like we will somehow return to simplicity

Understand the pregnancies of pauses

Prove things that will never have

Proof to stand behind their realities

Hold the ideal hand:

The hand of truth.

 

And in this meeting

Merging

Exchange of thoughts and the science of reason

We will discover a higher power

As neurons fire

And this perfectly imperfect flesh that contains us

Makes the desperately needed connection

Between God and Man.

 

But we are all created by degrees,

And even the best laid plans

Of the very best carpenters

Can go horribly wrong

As a nail punctures the flesh of palm.

You explain corruption as an inevitability.

These are not sugarplums dancing in my mind

But fruit without name.

 

Then, someone called it an apple.

And for a few seconds too long, we believed.

See the fruit I hold out to you?

An uncomfortable mix of familiar and foreign.

I wonder if the weaker man in you

Struggles to be passive

To refuse even a taste

Knowing that it will bring

A plague of regret and repentance

Down to cover us both.

 

Upon being exhumed

Yet another unenlightened universe

Will call us ancient.

They'll get the date wrong.

Will not understand the dichotomy

Of time and ages inexplicable.

We will have become yet another breath

Which is far less than the truth

To a brave new world which needs no more lies.

 

We are all created by degrees,

And perhaps, were this construction not so precise,

Perhaps if I had enough perspective

To shift myself like the formation of mountains,

I would be able to disregard doubt

And view you

As the first in a long line of things solidified and

Absolute.

 

An unintentional touch lights the spark

Of another unexpected connection

And we draw breath

 

 

In this life,

I have become far too heavy for enlightenment.

I've spent too long with my feet on the ground,

Making footprints.

Too busy looking forward to notice

The anachronism I have crushed beneath my heel.

 

Tonight,

We are the only thing that makes sense

In a world that has turned it's back on

Reason.

 

We are all created by degrees:

For the first time in my life

I am struggling to believe that I really do have free will.

If I were stronger, braver, freer

If I were more than just this girl

I would inhale you

Let you invade me wholly

Learn all of your hymns.

 

And when I finally step off of this cliff

Of doubt, indecision, confusion and fear

I will land softly

Feel the cool grass of Eden

Under my bare feet

And be as certain as breathing

That there is always a chance

For redemption.