As you grow older
Life narrows like an iris shot with light
My father’s whole existence became the carousel
Of three memories—This is my favourite
When I was a boy after the war
I would walk through the skeletons of old villages
Bathing in the pink and clay bones of
Tiny towns teetering
On cliff tops like trapeze artists
One late afternoon I met an old man
In an old orchard
Bent over those peaches that had
Decided to meet the earth
He turned them over
Delicately one by one
Like jewels with a heartbeat
So the skin of each
Would receive its ration of sun
I watched ’til something in me
Could not resist the question
Does God exist
The old man turned
Like he had been born and had lived
One thousand lives just for this moment
He took one breath full of peach
And replied
Listen
To say that God exists might be a lie
But to say He doesn’t is an even bigger one
& just like that
Like he had been born and lived
One thousand lives for this orchard
For his peaches
For this question