a haiku by W.H. Auden‏

 
He has never seen God
but once or twice he believes
he has heard Him
 
 
                    W.H. Auden  
 
 
in trying to find this poem on the Internet after I’d come
upon it in the New Yorker, November 14, 2011, I settled
upon this unlikely site which gave the work enormous 
context
 
Colin Keenan pays heartfelt tribute to his friend, Wes
Wehmiller, both of them to me unknown
 
 
in preparing us for the poem Keenan says, 
 
                  “Auden came to understand that the essence
                   of prayer is not to talk to God, or to ask for
                   something, but to listen. I think that faith is
                   simply the ability to understand the language
                   that is spoken.” 
 
 
I think it is a profoundly insightful comment, it’s how I
listen in fact to music, for its easier access to the too
often too evanescent otherwise sublime, the mystical,
the miraculous
 
 
Richard