Faith in You

Faith in You

Ana Paula Arendt

I have faith

that things lean toward repair—

in the nightingale’s words,

in the sea’s salt,

in the patient grammar of the breeze,

that the stones remember.

Most would prefer instead

belief

in the argument of weapons—

safety measured

in explosions,

as if each dispute did not hasten

a clearer ruin:

disaffection,

and death.

Man eats man,

woman eats woman—

violence learning

its own appetite.

And yet I have faith:

above the thin crust

our steps fracture,

above the iced floor

we cross—

there is still air enough

for a bird to open its wings fully.

I have faith

that the place I opened in you

is a vast field

of soft, fragrant grass

and in your silver lake

all the vipers have gone still.

You ask if faith alone

can keep a bird

on its trembling branch,

rocked between wind

and the last golden light.

If it can keep us

from the jaguar’s hunger

that already knows its shape

behind the berried dark.

I say: yes—

not because I am spared by it,

but because I belong

to its offspring—

finding the shimmer of iridescent fish

multiplying into translucent colors.

Faith is the sickle

that gathers grain,

leaving straw

for the birds to nest.

I have not yet lost it—

that the world

may have an answer,

and that you will read it

in the gentlest words

my hand can reach.

I still believe

we will find what we seek,

make of it

a quiet astonishment—

while I rest

against your warm chest.

There, where I find

the burnished treasures

I had not known

before you.

I have faith in you

and in everything that you do.

In what your hands refuse to break.

In what your presence

keeps from ending.

In the way the world

does not close

when you are in it.

We are not without fault—

but in love, we never mistake.

And because of this—

others will come.

They will search for us

in what remains—

in the field,

in the grain,

in the quiet astonishment

we left unfinished.

I have faith

that each time you open

your smile

and my heart lifts into flame,

a new child in the world

is born.