After Dover Beach

After Dover Beach

Here’s the truth:

The sea of faith was never full.

Human hearts always wander,

Always grieve, 

Always fear.

That’s what Sophocles heard in the Aegean

And Arnold heard in the Atlantic,

And I hear tonight

In these Kansas River-ripples.

But down by the riverside,

Under the watchful witness

Of old Menninger’s clocktower,

All my senses testify of grace

Poured forth in ways

As familiar as they are new:

Jumping fish,

Waxing moon,

Frog-and-cicada chorus,

Fireflies dancing through the dark.

This is what Arnold missed:

Though faith’s sea

Be a mere mudpuddle,

Surrounded by the clashes 

Of ignorant armies,

Grace is a vast ocean, 

Abounding more each moment,

Dragging us under its riptides,

Plunging us into light so bright

It drowns the looming dark,

Fulfilling promises too good

To be untrue.