Humanist Voices in Verse: The Two Problems of Certainty

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” (author Peter Quinn) 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.


The Two Problems of Certainty

How to
admit to a man,
who has just
lost his wife,

One does
not believe
there is the
afterlife.

How to
solemnly
state, straight
to his face,

That there
are no miracles,
Nor any gods
in this place.

—Daniel Thomas Moran