They Have Words And Promises And They Have Rituals Poem by Shalom Freedman

They have words and they have promises and they have rituals
And they have learned journals and scholarly reviews
And all manner of verification in experiments repeated
And confirmed and reaffirmed again and again-
And they have all this discourse which not only tells us what we are
But enables us to make out of what was before
Something that was not before
And to give a sense of miracle not only to the past but to the future-

They have blessings and kind deeds and moral rewards
And all kinds of good things for those good in their minds
They have everything humans can do and be
And still they are not and we are not God
And cannot be-

Only God can be God
Only God can be God
And we with whatever we do
However great and good
Are not the End and the Beginning
And the One Answer that can possibly answer us all –

There is God
And there is us
But the difference
The difference will not disappear
No matter how many Universes we make
And how many parallel Cosmoses we define and devise-

Oh God is God and only God is God
And we are cosmic dust with spirit great indeed
But not God not God
For only God is God
And we do not understand what that means.