Robert Yeo (b. 1940)
SELECTED POEMS
Faith
So is this faith? To ask and ask
(like an innocent taken to task
for imagined wrongs before no law)
As if you have not asked before?
To persist in spite of a blank
(Unlike the last walk on a plank)
Which is neither an open door
Nor a closed one, but a missing door.
Yet you will peer around, stretching
Eye and hope between the rooting
Of your prayer and the flower, possibly
At the end of the bending stalk, maybe
As long as Jack’s. But who are you?
Though you ask for no miracles, true,
You are no Jack. Just a weak fellow.
Before whom are many that follow
Who deserve to be there, who have queued long
And who, at least, in this, is strong
So follow Him wherever He may be.
You will be asked if you wait patiently.
For this is faith. Hoping, asking, waiting,
Increasingly to feel undeserving,
If your will equals your need, wondering,
If there’s no cause except in the believing.
by Robert Yeo
from A Colette Sequence and Other Poems (2025)
