Manifest, by Scott Owens

Scott Owens
MANIFEST

I believe in the world.
I believe there are things in the world
we can neither see nor understand.
I believe in trying to quantify those things.
And I believe that intolerant insistence
on any particular quantification is foolish.
Christianity, Judaism, Atheism,
any doctrine received whole–
to the open eye, the open mind,
none of these will do.

Heretic! Blasphemer! Unbeliever! they say.
You’ll burn! they say.
But I know I burn already.

Tie me to a post.
Unstop my ears.
I would hear it all,
have it all,
renounce fear and self-denial.
Every day I meet my maker.

More weight, he said,
wanting all of his sins
heaped upon his head,
as much of the world
as he could take.