Saturday Verse: "My Doubt" - Jane Hirshfield

August 15th, 2016

MY DOUBT 

I wake, doubt, beside you,
like a curtain half-open. 

I dress doubting,
like a cup
undecided if it has been dropped. 

I eat doubting,
work doubting,
go out to a dubious cafe with skeptical friends. 

I go to sleep doubting myself,
as a herd of goats
sleep in a suddenly gone-quiet truck. 

I dream you, doubt,
nightly–
for what is the meaning of dreaming
if not that all we are while inside it
is transient, amorphous, in question? 

Left hand and right hand,
doubt, you are in me,
throwing a basketball, guiding my knife and my fork.
Left knee and right knee,
we run for a bus,
for a meeting that surely will end before we arrive. 

I would like
to grow conent in you, doubt,
as a double-hung window
settles obedient into its hidden pulleys and ropes. 

I doubt I can do so:
your own counterweight governs my nights and my days. 

As the knob of hung lead holds steady
the open mouth of a window,
you hold me,
my kneeling before you resistant, stubborn,
offering these furious praises
I can't help but doubt you will ever be able to hear.

                                                                       - Jane Hirshfield