Resolution

I will become superstitious.
I will stuff secret meanings into
Ordinary places.
I will endow, imbue, animate, sanctify,
Making the simple stand for the sublime.
No more arid searching after truth;
I will make myself prehistoric,
Believing in signs and demons, and the angry spirits
That heave up the swallowing sea.
I will make sacrifices.
Burn a virgin, if need be.
Some scoff at prophecies that self-fulfill –
But what could be more elegant? And after all,
Belief in a false thing is a real thing –
A dangerous, beautiful, useful thing.
So let me bow to idols, tremble at symbols,
Decipher the unencrypted entrails of dead birds.
Let my lips mutter and my eyes roll back;
Let the cynics laugh their dry defeated laughter
While I, ridiculous, conquer the world.