Gods

Gods

Whitewater is the song
in swift echo, swung sea salt, splashed hand reaching for
a god who was last seen resting on a stone
in the far south, in Patagonia,
with a woman in its arms, and a boy babe
at their feet, and a shrill daughter
calling out to the gulls and surfs,
all of them trying to remember
what music was
before heartbeat.

Truth might be an animal.
Nature beyond the scope of the seen. Wilderness
nonetheless in my dry lips, my chapped feet,
my frigid voice, attempting to carry my love
through each doorway.

Death greets us
at birth in the moment of our breathing,
in the moment of our first grieving,
knowing that we are all well on our way towards dying

to someday, say farewell to death.

The forest is bending, the cityscape
holds firm non-growing but it is changing.
I heard that a god was seen
walking along the Avon
on its way to Bath with a man,
holding hands, in dresses long as sheets
draped over them as if they were ghosts.

Shouldn’t I, be moving?
Not just out my mother’s womb.
Upwards and heaving, my sweat, skin, and body laden,
reeking of smells that dare the skies, dare the soil,
dare the deer that dart through my childhood backyard
and prance through my memory as a hurricane.

When I met a god
I was never the same. How lowly
its brow fell, how lowly
its spine slouched, how lowly
it spoke, weaving a basket with gingham
and jean.

Couldn’t I, with time and luck, become some god?
A god of braided, thinning hair,
a god bracing against the thundering rain, shivering
under a cardboard box, the ceiling
mere moments
from caving..

I could be that god.

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First published in Whimperbang 2019. This is this poem’s first appearance on this blog or anywhere else.