The God Who
       

It was the small gods we talked to
before words, though soon enough
we forgot, and sadly, that what dawn
or the shine of hips made the heart do
was prayer.
                  The god of a particular
slow bend in the river, his friend
god of the white boats swung around it,
gods of moderately impressive rocks,
of spots warm where someone was just sitting,
of the deep sharp scents of shoes, of sounds
whose direction is unclear, of silver linings:
they appreciated whatever small appreciations
came their way and, ignored,
were not so much vengeful
as doubtful in that early world,
where the workload, if it can be called that,
of their divinely inefficient bureaucracy,
left plenty of time to enjoy the specialties
of their fellows, god of just sitting around,
god of the nasty slider, of low-battery gleeps,
of wine that gets better by the glass,
the god (the high god!) of too excited to sleep.

Actually, with considerable power
over one thing, or a couple—a book maybe,
tennis, unusual salads—but only average
at, say, getting lovers or starting a car,
they were a lot like us. Distinctions, in fact,
were not rigidly maintained, it being proverbially
difficult to be sure you're immortal
or that you're not. There was intermarriage,
bargaining, and respectful confusion (once
language got going)
about what constituted worship
and what was just delighted
saying of the names of things,
which persists. So as for the god

of the squeak of clean hair,
of your hand out the car window
wind-lifted, of the small shades under hat brims
and not excluding
the banned gods of leaf-fires and tobacco,

oh and definitely including
she of the coffee-breath and fine cold hands
who says Sit down friend and let's see,
let's just see, and certainly
my other god, he of Least Resistance
who decrees what is going to happen anyway,
who listens only to prayers that end
Let all be as Thou will'st, who grants
only my wish to believe in him,

and with the possible exception only of the god of making a list
of all the other gods, who gets distracted and forgets so many
that suddenly the universe is His and only His,

praise them.

Copyright © 2010 James Richardson All rights reserved
from By the Numbers
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission