Читать книгу By the Numbers - James Richardson - Страница 25

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.