Poet: Is faith enough to make a dream real?

March 2, 2026

By Patricia Ranzoni

Patricia Ranzoni, former poet laureate of Bucksport.

A Cross-Continental Echo of Faith

Are you saying that all the springs

    bubbling up, up and down Maine,

prove that prayers work, even absent

    sequined fish swimming on sand?

That if we just cry enough they would

    swim right over our shores

to the poor, delivering fish hooks?

    Then shall we pray? And cry?

You declare that where Americans care,

       and wheel to fellowships to say so,

(Blue Hill Peace & Justice, for example)

       these shade trees will spring up

to protect against cancer and the tire tracks

    we leave will serve

for animal babies to be born in.

    Oh, thank you for your dream!

That when we come together to join hands

    and candles in circle, singing,

our homeless and hungry, warm

      and filled with fish, will dare appear

and reach back, fuzzy and downy newborns

       playing at our feet.

Let us pray, and cry, to believe this.

—Ranzoni was Bucksport’s poet laureate from 2014 to 2025. This poem was inspired by Jean Esteve's "Declaration of Faith.”

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