If a god made the earth,
blew light from stars
into millions and billions of lungs
that fed the pulsing blood
of trillions of hearts
that exhaled nourishment
for gazillions of plants that covered mountains,
emerging from shifting plates,
and day by day by day by day
becoming soil, lungs ceasing,
hearts being still,
sleeping in the crumbled mountain
under new plants,
feeding stems and leaves and seeds
becoming petals and pollen
and bees and butterflies.
If a god made the earth,
every rock containing stardust,
every fossil made of god-dust,
clutter,
precious and unlovely,
I humbly bow,
I apologize,
for the loveless name,
the false distance implied.
Is it you who would accumulate,
walking on your own feet,
opening the door, uninvited,
finding, or not, your own spot to settle in?
Not for me to refuse
the eight cent sunglasses, immediately broken,
at the dentist’s office,
to keep an equal weight of god-dust
deposited in its lush and verdant home.
That might be uncomfortable.
Better that my son experience five seconds of distracted almost-pleasure
browsing the bin of yo-yos and fake eggs,
filled of fake creatures, man-dust,
training the future makers of man-things
to look for self where it is not found.
Beloved dust, god-made, man-transformed,
I defend your honor
against the denigration
this name confers.
I am overrun with god-dust,
I drown in too much god-dust,
I have accepted more than is needed,
I have allowed stagnant pools,
I have participated in the transformation of
stars
destined for a more beautiful end.
May every child have a blanket,
every mother a wall against the cold,
Amen.
first draft Dec 2018, edited Sep 2019