THE BACK OF BEYOND

The force of faith and the crystal of truth
May shatter before they are called the same:
Neither belief nor science can tender proof
Of a world created in a god’s name.
Art, music, architecture, charity:
Even these may never forgive so much
Torture, hatred, war and stupidity;
Should we then clutch at what we cannot touch?
Back through space, on a journey in reverse
Through a void before bibles and theories,
To the gate of an expanding universe
At the beginning and end of all stories:
Then may we see past the what, when, where and how,
And solve the mystery of why - there and now.



(2009)


This sonnet is probably a belated response to reading ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins a couple of years before. The book provides a very persuasive argument for atheism, but, after finishing it, I realized that my own position was still best describedas being agnostic.

The picture was taken in Koversada, Croatia a few years ago.