Solution
I woke up this morning excited
To tell my wife I'd found the solution
To life -- only took me forty years.
It's belief I said.
Everyone knows that she answered.
Then why didn't you tell me?
I had always thought it was to feel,
The intensity, the beauty, the horror.
(As long as you were feeling, you were living.)
Happiness is simple -- one just accepts,
But only idiots and monks seem able.
But does belief require truth?
(To hold on to what we think is true.)
But, alas, truth begins with the fact of death,
And it's so troublesome to embrace death;
So maybe our belief need not be true.
When a gambler lays a high stake
And receives his card or number,
His belief is reaffirmed.
When the joyous or the grieving
Turn their emotions to their God,
They are able to share immensity
And their belief is reaffirmed.
It is the stay against the fall
To loneliness, the handhold
Against despair.
Belief gives hope
Belief gives strength
Belief gives belief.
And there in the soft light
As she begins undressing
Is beauty unquestionable,
And there in the first sip
Is the one perfect night,
And there in the first stroke
Is the finished masterpiece,
And there in the unknown stranger
Is the perpetual savior,
And there in the anguished death
Is the kingdon of heaven.