But why? By dawn, the day already

brims with answers: Yes, you may question

the universe; no, God will not answer;

yes, a double negative could mean maybe

this strange world cowers inside another Yes—

or not. What a knot of not knowing creates our No’s,

affirmation its own negation of belief—“No,

I do believe your unbelief”—the tangles already

tugged and tied into a complicated Yes

that dons its technicolored coat of questions

drenched in sunrise. I am awash with hope. Maybe

that, too, shimmers more in the morning, the answers

lighting the air like leftover fireflies. But answer

me this before I leap too quickly back to my No:

Will the trill of this blue jay calm my Maybe’s

only until noon when the world’s news already—

more often than not—overtakes me with questioning

despair. I walk out into this morning of Yes

and breathe what I need of silence. You are the Yes

I want, the clear but not simple answer

to this moment, now, before this mind you created questions

the brightness of your burning bush, even as I know

too well the power of heat, my heart already

taking off its sandals of Maybe

to bow low this singed soul. It may be

this, too, is another form of Yes,

the step toward or away already

the movement of prayer that answers

that nightfall of what we cannot know,

that forest we cannot see amidst such branching questions.

“Who do you say that I am?” you question

and leave no/much room for tangled Maybe’s.

My feet and mind shift. “Be still and know. . . .”

This morning the lilies bloom “Yes!”

The newspaper’s other answers

merely crackle in the background, already

a No turned question,

already a Maybe

with Yes the answer.