Ink-stained fingers

Ink-stained fingers                                                                                            

There’s no puzzle to solve. 

The crossword has been filled in from the first

(very faintly, with a soft lead pencil) –

an answer for every clue. 

We interpret it, in our mad dash

down and across, as a set of instructions

and with ink-stained fingers

put meaning to it, ignoring the inconsistencies,

the strange syntax, those troubling black gaps,

reading it according to our particular karma –

add the missing, leave out the intolerable.

There’s no puzzle to solve.  (Thank God!) 

We haven’t the equipment for it.

And in our blustering headlong interference

we ignore the original clues, miss the underlying solution,

cling to our dark, heavily-edited versions

rather than find the faith to live

without a solution, without answers, without a clue.

O child of God, begin to grasp the truth

by realizing your own profound ignorance.