Poetry | Certitude
Certitude
©2018 Vernon Miles Kerr
Certitude is the anodyne of a muddled mind.
And, aren’t all our minds a mess without it?
As entropy collapses the Universe around our ears
Our mystery-averse minds piteously flail
Like drowning men ‘round a ruptured ship,
Grabbing even hopeless bits of flotsam to stay—just sane.
And so it was, even with our half-ape progenitors
Sitting around a fire in the howling night
With the sparkling, arching firmament wheeling above,
Shouting, “Explain Me!”
And so, they did. And it was a logical explanation,
At least, in the context of their struggling existence.
Now their minds could focus on the mundane task of survival—
Until sadistic Nature posed her next quandary,
And we, their descendants, swarming around this spinning globe,
are no less cowed and just as distracted—by the unexplained.
We, like they, cannot get on with life until all the big questions are answered.
Who cares whether our certitude stems
From revered religious texts or science books?
By it, our muddled minds are mollified,
And life happens.