Hubris

Imagine his delight and surprise
at reading news of black widow spiders
in supermarket grapes
and lightning that burned down
Jesus. 

His first thought:

Some things are too improbable
to be feared
or understood.

He looked at the stories
with a practiced eye
for discerning meaning
and finding connections;
was at a loss
until he saw a third story
of a miracle cure for blindness
in a remote land: a child
touched by an electric eel
awoke from a three day coma
with sight. 

Then in an instant he recognized
how to spin it all
into a narrative he could believe:

the sky’s fire stroking down;
the poison in the seemingly safe fruit;
the girl opening her eyes to see
incredulous doctors straining to understand
what was happening —

pride stumbling against nature,
and nature just laughed.

He congratulated himself on figuring it out.

That all the links were only in his head
was something he never stopped to consider.