A Wager on Awe

The cloth is spread with paper and rocks

and flames,

how to touch something real against skin

when wrapped in a sheet? Inside

you are safe

if you consider fear

to be a protector.

Maybe, but someone outside

says don’t settle for safety.

We are always safe

and never safe 

at once, so after that negation

you are free.

Pascal says the real risk

is in not believing.

If we act as if

we are riding god’s thumbprint

in circles around the sun,

what’s to lose

other than reservation to awe.

What do you intend to do?