Zero visibility possible,
you read aloud. The logic’s water-tight:
there’s always a good chance for lack of sight.
We left late. This valley’s crossable
on good days, but today, the signs are flashing
Dust storms may exist. Or they may not.
Mirages shimmer like our love, caught
somewhere out there just below being.
Is there nothing here to see, or can
nothing be seen?
So we drive on, enmeshed
in what may not exist, our baffled flesh
tumbling down this road that hope began.
In zero visibility, we gaze
into the hazy now and then and always.
—J. C. Scharl
What We’ve Been Reading—Autumn 2025
First Things staff share their most recent autumn reading recommendations.
Walker Percy’s Pilgrimage
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
No man is an island,” John Donne declares in his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. The Ballad of…