Originally posted 7/31/2011; original title, “Cobbler’s Faiths.”

Some cobble their religion
from old songs half remembered
stray parental advice
advertising scripts
movie scenes
observations made upon losing virginity
every episode of favored cartoons
lines grabbed from books sniffed out at yard sales
or learned from peers better versed in cool
rare T-shirts
well-shouted poems

It seems as valid
as anything put together
by committees of old men
staring suspiciously at past wisdom
scrapping over papyrus and parchment
and vellum
with an eye toward
power

Each seems to offer
as much comfort to its believers
as the other does to its congregation

My God
is also a crafter
A maker of watches and clocks

Long ago
the Holy Mechanism was turned on
It made a cog of me
I learn the secrets of time
and motion for myself
as I mesh with All
and work in tandem with All
to bring All
forward

Sometimes I do envy
those whose shoes fit well enough
to let them cross these stone-seeded grounds
with such ease 
especially on those days when I’m deaf
to the Ticking
and I stumble and stub and bleed
while straining to hear it again

but then I reconsider
and smile through the pain
imagining what more important things
than worrying about me
the Watchmaker may be up to