for David Hume

This room will not contain
us, with so many windows and a door
whose threshold we cross, calling
ourselves to order,
seeing if we can’t

make the nothing
we believe a raging truth
for all to behold.
Impossible

to understand in this unknown
we venture through, each afternoon
seeking sweeping epiphanies
that will grow like a flame
fanned from slumbering ashes,
that will blow and cling

to our sides
in the hours we search
for nameless dogma, becoming alive
through history.
It’s what we make

of their testimony that lies,
a fable brought to dinner
that inhales deeply
the sweet aroma of meat;
our metaphysical miscarriage
swimming in a pool of pure reason

beneath
a roundtable
where good scouts sit
when trying to be brave, alone
under the weight of a clear voice
that will bate us

to look past what we’ve been through;
still we leave by the door
not the window.