The Atheist Confronts A Love Supreme

It’s just vibrations:

Reeds

Skins

Metal

Catgut

Wood

Wires

Set in motion by

Lips

Tongues

Lungs

Hands

Feet,

In turn, set in motion by

Minds that are not free,

That are run on chemicals

and electricity—

And there is no heart;

The heart is an organ—

And it’s all molecules anyhow.

It may seem spirit-sound

In its volume

movement

dynamics

repetitions

In its prayer-coherence

but

God’s not in it.

No god hears it.

That’s what he thinks.

But in a half-century of

Proselytizing on its merits,

It is not what he says.

This is not subterfuge.

It is stubborn impulse,

Some synapse snap,

That makes him whisper,

“It is spiritual.”