Non Serviam

I will not serve
the word that asks me to close my eyes
in order to see.

I have stood
in your houses of echo and light,
where voices rise like incense
and fall like ash,
and I have felt it, yes,
that trembling architecture of belief
built from breath and longing.

I do not deny it.

I have watched
hands open in prayer
like windows in winter,
hoping for something warm
to enter.

I have known that hope.

But I will not give my name
to what demands it back unchanged.
I will not kneel
where the cost of wonder
is certainty.

If there is a truth,
it lives the length of a moment,
arriving, leaving,
never asking to be held
longer than it can remain.

I have loved things
that vanished.
I have trusted what could not stay.
This has taught me enough.

So, I remain here,
not outside,
not inside,
but at the threshold
where the door is always opening
and never closed.

Go in, if you must.
Carry your fire carefully.

I will stay with the wind,
where nothing asks me to serve,
and everything asks me to feel.

---

© Paul Wittenberger 5/2/2026