Faith in a Time of Faithlessness

They are lovely, your orange slices
and peignoirs, and especially that green
cockatoo, but why, poet, limit the mind
of God to a heaven of immutable fruit?
Perhaps belief must be wooed, much as anything
we hunger for.

Granted, pursuit is a young man’s game,
but in their eagerness, boys grab
too rashly at the inviolate: so faithful,
those green boys to their fruitful
strivings, while steadfast lovers
know faith can never be
plucked or shaken from the tree.
Faithless to grandiose pursuits, they
abide in quiet passionate persuasion.

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

What We’ve Been Reading—Autumn 2025

The Editors

First Things staff share their most recent autumn reading recommendations.

Walker Percy’s Pilgrimage

Algis Valiunas

People can get used to most anything. Even the abyss may be rendered tolerable—or, for that matter,…

Outgrowing Nostalgia in The Ballad of Wallis Island

Peter J. Leithart

No man is an island,” John Donne declares in his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. The Ballad of…