Against Certainty

...so, I'm thinking that the beloved Gregory Wolfe is right, and that this might could be the actual title for the forthcoming book, rather than _Chemo with Coleridge_. Show of hands?

Against Certainty

Knowledge may have its purposes,
but guessing is always
more fun than knowing.
		—Auden, from “Archaeology”

Yes, the jig is up; no one is getting 
anywhere worthwhile

so long as one demands to know just what
—precisely—obtains.

Each might, of course, suppose some small progress
toward the lit hope

of greater apprehension, of greater 
gnosis, but such hope

is dashed in the moment one's conclusions
glibly shut the door.

Guessing, on the other hand, is far more
likely to move one’s

poor mind somewhat nearer to a very
dear, elusive truth.

Guessing also delivers to the one
who guesses a more

efficacious modesty regarding
what dear images

the imagination thereafter limns
upon the dear, lit

page, or projects upon the ever bright
and animate air.