There is so much silence between the words,  
  you say. You say, The sensed absence  
  of God and the sensed presence  
  amount to much the same thing,  
  only in reverse.  
  You say, I have too much white clothing.  
  You start to hum.  
  Several hundred years ago  
  this could have been mysticism  
  or heresy. It isn't now.  
  Outside there are sirens.  
  Someone's been run over.  
  The century grinds on.
"In the Secular Night" - Morning in the Burned House (1995)



















