what I call god is much vaster
and sometimes far less complex
than what I call god. One day
it was a hornet’s nest in the rain
that I called god in the hospital
where I felt the suffering of others
and the casual patience of the insects
fighting to build in spite of the water.
I have also called a door god
and a tree I once stepped inside
to restore my strength
after a thunderous defeat.
God is my highest level of relative understanding
at the point of total despair
when a flower flutters or a mad
dogs comes towards me with camaraderie.
And it is even the word god that I ascribe
to the most beautiful instincts, in the rain,
noticing that on the changeable ground
what I call the soul has bloomed and succumbed over and over
in the chemistry of my desires
to offer up some thing.
Fróes, Leonardo “The Catcher in the Persimmons”. Ottawa: FlipSide, 2017. p.15. Translation by Rob Packer.