Believing bipeds

Are we really just Skinner's pigeons,
Twitching in trained belief?

Mammals becoming hairless;
Are we really just
Eat or be eaten,
Echoes and reflections of our longest past
On the planes and in caves?

Is that us,
Now learning to individuate, with discomfort,
Islands of one, alone?

Are we held up by stories,
Believing as true for dear life
These vile deterministic tales of purpose in it all,
Set in a short story of millenia,
Then some vague promise of paradise?

Are we so deceived and limited in our grasp,
Perceiving intention and sensitivity everywhere,
Expecting order
As we catalogue each new secret revealed?

Is Great Time the mocker,
So vast we cannot grasp it,
The folds of whose heavy black curtain, so many,
We cannot find our way even a few steps?

Where is meaning? Where is purpose?

These things in which I committed my cause, believing.
I asked to be shown The Truth,
And now I feel alone.

The truth is:
The limiting safety of belief,
Or the fearsome open space of beginning to know.

I'm all for believing,
But I cannot reverse
Adam's bite of the apple:
His eyes were opened,
He was naked and afraid.
And he hid.