Perhaps the most basic function of religion (and spiritualism) is the attempt to explain the inexplicable. The fear of death is at the core of the human experience, and life itself has no significance or beauty if its purpose is simply to sustain its own existence for as long as it can while ensuring the continuance of the species through the short-lived ecstasies of the reproduction process. Because life is filled with so much suffering, we search (often desperately) for signs of something greater — something that goes beyond the laws of physics and offers promise that all is not lost in death.

The Ascension of Christ promotes the idea that there is life after death. It is possible for each of us to rise to a previously unimaginable beauty. However, for most, there are too many moments of doubt and loss of faith. The laws of physics seem to always drag us back to a reality in which miracles just can’t happen. There is no solid evidence of any kind of magic in our lives. To believe is folly.

Yet to not believe just might be worse folly. And I’m not talking here about going to Hell for being faithless. It is something else, something to do with man’s ambition to be God-like through his own creativity. The history of genius — from Da Vinci to Shakespeare to Beethoven to the Bronte sisters to Edison to Einstein — is proof that we can make magic for ourselves through this “gift” from some higher place. And even at the lower levels, where local poets and artists and inventors strive to create stuff, we find ourselves absorbed in a process that we hope will spark a magic fire in the imaginations of others.

The Canadian poet Mark Strand wrote a poem titled “The Prediction.” In it, he paints a series of images through which a woman time-travels. It is, to me, a magical piece, and a concept that I have tried to bring to life through my own work. I share here my own hopefully not-too-feeble attempt at surpassing the laws of science and creating a magic moment.

Doorways

If you stare at an empty doorway long enough

Someone might appear

Who is not just passing through

In the shuffle of it all

But who means to be there

Or maybe was sent

And has a reason to stare

Back at you, or beyond you

Or even straight through you.

Filling void with vacancy

This stranger you

Seem to know

hovers in the door frame

a frail anachronism

one hand clutching the handle

Unmoving, uncertain.

It will not come in.

It has perceived its own evanescence.

Door leads to door

Dreams open wide and

Heartbeats are counted in the closures.

You will follow the traces

to a dark closet

And a musty box

Of a thousand old photographs.

Dragging them into the light

You seek the continuum.

Aha! There it is!

Cast in a stained, milky light

An old farmhouse

a great oak in the yard,

a tilted swing on a shaded porch.

Someone stands in a doorway

One hand clutching the handle

The other waving

across an unfathomable field.

Pete Howard is a Dunkirk resident, writer, musician and teacher. FOCAL Point strives to make insightful social commentary through the integration of Facts, Observations, Compassion, Awareness and Logic.