Pointers

Alan Berecka

July 5, 2026

The early church fathers 

all believed that God 

was a mystery, whose true 

nature lay well beyond 

human understanding,

but then in their next breath 

and with total confidence 

they set down rigid dogma 

and screamed heretic at anyone 

who disagreed with their creed.

The Buddha warned us

about the finger pointing 

at the moon. How if we 

stare too long at the finger, 

we lose sight of the moon.

Better we look to fields 

of wild flowers in full bloom, 

the oddly beautiful murmuration

of starlings, the joy of children at play, 

at lovers waking hand in hand,

of friends sitting down to a meal,

or in any simple act of compassion strangers 

bestow on one another, and begin to sense

that beyond the stale dogmas, we all

belong rooted in some glorious mystery.

Alan Berecka resides with his wife Alice and an ornery rescue dog named Ophelia in Sinton, Texas  He retired in January from being a librarian at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi and is settling into a whole new level of contentment. His poetry has appeared in such places as the American Literary Review, Texas Review, and The San Antonio Express. He has authored three chapbooks, and six full collections, the latest of which is Atlas Sighs from Turning Plow Press, 2024. A Living is not a Life: A Working Title (Black Spruce Press, Brooklyn, 2021) was a finalist in the Hoffer Awards. From 2017 to 2019 he served as the first poet laureate of Corpus Christi.