Humanist Voices in Verse: “Theology”

This week’s poem is by Daniel Thomas Moran, TheHumanist.com poetry editor, retired dentist and Boston University Assistant Professor, former Poet Laureate of Suffolk County, New York and the author of seven collections of poetry. He lives in Webster, New Hampshire with his wife, Karen, where he has taken on the role of Unemployed Poet and Anecdotalist. His recently published collection of poems, A Shed for Wood, has been lauded for its “profound and intelligible poetry” (Peter Quinn, author) while Moran is described as “a distinctive American voice which deserves an attentive hearing” (Elizabeth Heywood, Acumen Literary Journal). His website is www.danielthomasmoran.net.

If you’d like to contribute original poetry to Humanist Voices in Verse,  send an email to write@thehumanist.com with “Poetry” in the subject line. Please send no more than three poems for consideration per week.

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Theology

We all have our jobs,
Don’t we?

Some pick the apples,
Some let them rot
where they lie.

There are those who
carry the water, and those
who cause it to spill.

Some plant trees, and some
use them to build crosses
that will burn the night.

And of course there are those
gifted bomb makers, and the ones
who must become the debris.

In the colliding of holy books,
we have all become soldiers.
And where are the healers
to tend the endless wounded?

When it is done, and all
the prayers have been uttered,
the sacred candles expired,
we must rise from our knees.

Some of us will die, some
will have to bury the dead.

2015 Daniel Thomas Moran