Humanist Voices in Verse: James C. Coomer

This week’s featured poem is by James C. Coomer. He is emeritus professor of political science and former Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Mercer University.  He has held faculty and administrations positions at the University of Houston and at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.  He is the author of several books and his collection of poems, A Lifetime of Yesterdays, is available through all ebook distributors. 

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

The Quest

In every age the quest remains the same:

To seek the answers that can ne’er be known

To find the passage through which souls have flown

To find a face for god and give it name.

The remnants found in dust and crumpled stone

Give silent voice to images and forms

Held up as portals through which mystery transforms

A dust of time into immortal bone.

Within itself, the mystery transforms

A seeker seeking to embrace the scope

Of thoughts which Gilgamesh has sown.

From cave, to tent, to temple move the forms.

The ballad, chant, and hymn send forth the hope.

The mystery sought is never to be known.

—James C. Coomer