<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">Staying Power<div><br></div><div><i style="font-size: 14px;">In appreciation of Maxim Gorky at the International Convention of Atheists, 1929</i></div><div><br>Like Gorky, I sometimes follow my doubts<br>outside to the yard and question the sky,<br>longing to have the fight settled, thinking<br>I can't go on like this, and finally I say<br><br>all right, it is improbable, all right, there<br>is no God. And then as if I'm focusing<br>a magnifying glass on dry leaves, God blazes up.<br>It's the attention, maybe, to what isn't there<br><br>that makes the emptiness flare like a forest fire<br>until I have to spend the afternoon dragging<br>the hose to put the smoldering thing out.<br>Even on an ordinary day when a friend calls,<br><br>tells me they've found melanoma,<br>complains that the hospital is cold, I say God.<br>God, I say as my heart turns inside out.<br>Pick up any language by the scruff of its neck,<br><br>wipe its face, set it down on the lawn,<br>and I bet it will toddle right into the godfire<br>again, which—though they say it doesn't<br>exist—can send you straight to the burn unit.<br><br>Oh, we have only so many words to think with.<br>Say God's not fire, say anything, say God's<br>a phone, maybe. You know you didn't order a phone,<br>but there it is. It rings. You don't know who it could be.<br><br>You don't want to talk, so you pull out<br>the plug. It rings. You smash it with a hammer<br>till it bleeds springs and coils and clobbery<br>metal bits. It rings again. You pick it up<br><br>and a voice you love whispers hello.<br><br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Jeanne Murray Walker</div></div></div></body></html>