Broadmindness Touching
Electric Fences
He thought himself a mystic, though I don’t
Believe he knew strict meanings for that word.
He had these fuzzy notions: he was wont
To stretch and blend. His holiness was blurred.
B’hai was far too cut and dried for him,
I’m sure. Its generalities were much
Too carefully delineated, prim.
He wanted dreamy visions that would touch
His liberality of thought but still
Allow his rants against racism, hate
Of women dressed as doctrine, and the spill
Of greed—that ordinary human state.
He even toyed with Methodism’s ways
But flinched because of its rebuff of gays.