god in poetry

god not as norse-christian hairy thunderer
nor hippy-dippy new age cosmic muffin
but god, god as the ocean, god as the sea
vast bottomless ancient insanely powerful
powerful in a way that changes shorelines on whim
provided it has ten thousand years after that whim
but also, in the moment despite its power
in given moment just kind of there in background
waves lapping at the same patch of sand
you saw it lapping against as a child
you’ll see it lapping against when old
never changing in your lifetime because
you get about as much breath as a mayfly but
on a scale of eons able to change anything
ancient and powerful and vast but not
sensate in any way we could comprehend
too long-lived, too many trillions of waves made
too many trillion more waves to yet make
god as something like that

someone takes a paper cup and scoops water from the sea
into the cardboard drinking vessel probably from fast food
it’s such a small amount compared to the huge briny blue
but ultimately, it’s the same stuff same water as the ocean
a little of it in one place separate from the rest for a while
small and differently-shaped but still the same as the sea
inside that cup, that’s you, what you’d call your soul
self-contained itsy and unable to shape continents
but made of the exact same thing as the ocean
just a microform in a paper cup, that’s you

maybe you get lucky and live to eighty
you start to think you are the cup
or that the water and the cup are
something inseparably the same
maybe you’ve come to think that
the words on the side are your name
you think that you are “burger king”
not the water pulled out from sea
but some day, a long time later
your water will be cast back into
the ocean and you will remember
you were always the same as the sea
you were always made of that water
you were a tiny part of that water
just taken away for a little while
you realize your name wasn’t “burger king”
you realize the real you are always waters
you blend back in, indistinguishable again
you are the same thing as god again

god, god as the ocean
the deep blue ancient ocean
the soul, your soul as fragment of ocean
separate and small for a little while
to learn about what it is
to be separate and small
then you rejoin the sea

this is the god I want to believe in
this is the soul as I want it to be
this is the god I hope there is
this is the soul I’m looking for
god as the ocean god as the sea
my soul as a little cup of me
this is how I’d want it to be
I hope

Last updated June 10, 2018