Given That There Is No Explanation

 

A Chanukah poem about how Creation is equally a mystery to those who turn to reason or faith for an explanation:

 

Given that there is no explanation,

And that the provenance of the Creation,

Belief or no, remains a mystery,

Regarding how the whole thing came to be,

It makes no sense to squander sense on it.

Enjoy the candles, and when the last one's lit,

Love their loveliness, however lit.

 

Even so, one seeks an explanation:

Like one for Being, though there's none for it;

Like one for the creation of Creation,

Eternal Being bringing all to be.

Nor would no cause be less a mystery.

 

So faith and reason end in mystery,

Equally ignorant of what lit

The light from which all beings came to be,

Having no conclusive explanation

As to the existence of Creation,

Nor hint of what might be the cause of it,

Despite the tangibility of it.

Even so, the veil of mystery

Leads one to imagine the Creation,

Inventing how and why the void was lit,

Zealous for an ethical explanation,

A myth that makes love be the cause of be.

 

But one need not believe a myth to be

Open to the loveliness of it,

Nor need a theological explanation,

Nor care to solve a meta-mystery.

It might have been a miracle that lit

Eight days the lamps, as some say at Creation

A voice out of the void called forth Creation,

Needing out of love for us to be,

Demanding out of love our souls be lit,

Choosing not to be alone. It

Acts as fair use of a mystery,

Repurposing the role of explanation,

Making explanations of Creation

Exquisite art, that mystery might be

Not claimed by faith, but by the lamps it lit.

 

© by Nicholas Gordon

 

Audio and Video Music: Heart Strings. By Coyote Hearing. Music free to use at YouTube. Illustration Credit: AI

 

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/given4.html. For more Chanukah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .