Doubt is the angel of our time

Of any time, I’d wager—any movement
you can think of has its eyes on those
wings, wondering when they will rise
and sweep. Whether we’ll go toward
or away from knowledge is anybody’s
guess, no matter what they might want
you to believe. No faith but in
the questioning, because a lack of
query is a lack of thought. And let me
put it this way: I am a thinking woman.
Sometimes, the only word for bone
is bone, despite its lack of rattle.
Look long at salt or stone and try
to tell me otherwise. Is that not messenger
enough? This afternoon, a black and
orange snake bent itself over a jumble
of upturned rock and soil, around
a shock of grass. When I leapt back
it became a root, dead, part-stripped,
glossed with rain. And I can’t tell you
now whether it was intervention or
reinvention, salvation or distance.