By Alexis Draut

They’ve left for the library, but
I stay to read outside.

My patchwork faith combines saints
and sinners in a web of skepticism

and science and art and God: it’s an art that
will never be perfected, that should never

be perfected. I get angry at myself
for being impatient with myself, and

sometimes listening to grass is the only way
to calm me down, colonies of ants and wriggling worms

and it’s okay to ask questions. A dandelion is striped by the wind,
a sheep, it’s wool by the shepherd, and my words expose my secret:

that some days I don’t know where home is anymore
and some days I don’t know how to relate to God

except to press a tree bark
with the whole palm of my hand.

Mom doesn’t understand my poetry, which makes
her fear she doesn’t understand me, but she doesn’t know

I don’t understand my own writing any more
than I understand how the moon controls the tide;

I don’t understand God any more than I understand
why flowers grow on the southern side of hills

and I’ve found something in this ignorance,
chasing the mystery

and knowing I will never actually know
the answers to all of my full, fat questions.

When I was eleven, I raised my hand in class,
the respectful mystic in science

and now here I am, hoping God will somehow see my tiny hand
reaching up from below the Norfolk Pine.

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Alexis Draut is a native Kentuckian, born and raised in both Louisville and Danville, KY. She heavily associates with her sense of place, whether that be her homes in Kentucky, Georgia, Colorado, or New Zealand. She became interested in poetry and creative writing at a young age, has taken writing classes, and participated in poetry groups as well as writing workshops. Her writing revolves mostly around her passions for social justice, gender equality, environmental justice, spiritual curiosity, place, and nonviolence. Her favorite pastimes besides writing are reading, water coloring, gardening, swimming, tide pooling, and listening to Brandi Carlile.