The Mystic In Between
by Fred Gallagher
Doubt is the essence of Faith.
— Paul Tillich
When in doubt, walk round the backyard
of a late night with your anxious pup,
amble under constellations, touch like
braille stories of the stars, guessing at
a presence, hoping like a thing with feathers
perching on the inquiries your lustrous
desire for transcendence offer up.
Pick up a foot, then another in the blue
moon breeze, look closely for the mystic
in between where the pooch noses under
the leaves like a philosopher, and the heavenly
bodies blink, footfalls echoing up the fiery
empyrean, and down the apprehensive ages,
past a man with a shouldered beam, his bloody
mien, his tear-filled gaze, substances shifting,
attending you, as moved as you might well be,
as you pass somewhere between him and the
sweet voices of those you love, in the given
melodies of the mysterious starlight.
Fred Gallagher is a writer whose faith informs his poetry, short stories and essays with an incarnational worldview. His work has appeared in the St. Austin Review, Agora, Sanskrit, and the Cold Mountain Review, among others. He was a finalist in the 2024 Catholic Literary Arts Sacred Poetry Contest and winner of Prime Number Magazine's 2023 Annual Poetry Prize. He is also a Pushcart Prize nominee. He and his wife reside in Charlotte, NC.
