A Simple Question

“While I am asking questions which You do not answer, You ask me a question which is so simple that I cannot answer. I do not even understand the question.” Thomas Merton, A Merton Reader,

“And He continued by questioning them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’” Mark 8:29

Clear day
golden sky
gives way to
black clouds
and I ask,
“why?”

It’s a child’s question.

Within cities
hard edges, pavements
grey receive the red
tide, heads fall
and lives split open,
spill into
gutters fill,
sewers, fill
the sea,
and like a
persistent child
I ask “why?”

In the morning
through bright
windows I see how
spring leans
to summer, timid
leaves open wide
glow in silver light
and green fire
fills the wood,

and by this beauty
silenced,
I hear
in tones
beyond my hearing
a simple question;

“who?”