Who Should Speak?

IMAGE: PHOTO OF WRITING ON WALL

(Gandhi Museum, Delhi, India)

God comes

like a prairie dog, popping up--

alert, curious-- and disappearing again.

God comes

like a cherry blossom, unfolding pink and delicate in fragrance and flower;

giving way to leaf and stem, fruit and stone.

---

God comes

as mist, gently rising and

like a thunderstorm, all crash and fury.

God comes

like a raft

with water all around, and shore nowhere to be seen.

God comes

in the peace of prayer

and when we scream and cry in frustration and agony.

God comes

on a guitar string; from within a test tube; in the flight of a grand jete’;

during orgasm; as part of an equation; and with a birth contraction.

God comes

at the sound of laughter, or a space launch, or the death rattle

and when there is no sound at all.

God comes

to the new convert,

and the new atheist.

God comes

to those who comfort or call for justice.

God’s lexicon is all of creation. Who should speak for God?