Credere

If God did not already exist, it would be necessary to invent him. (Voltaire)

‘He’s God, cried all the creatures…’ (‘The Owl Who Was God’ by James Thurber)

If there has to be a God –
no option on the broken
road, the bridge of sighs –
then let it be a dancing god,

like Shiva, but a voiceless one,
indifferent, treading out
the double loop, the bee’s infinity
of weaving round and round until

the measure’s known by all.
Or if not the dancer,
how about a singer?
One who cants in tongues,

a lingua franca from the
furnace heat (ex corde vita),
singing the blues, sean nos,
la duende, passionate, engaged,

yet powerless to lift the curse
of Sisyphus, or block the juggernaut,
or move the stone. These gods omnipotent,
who claim our praise and swallow

our prayers like hungry birds,
are dreams that draw
on the oxygen of our need.
We might as well worship

water falling, shape-shifting
clouds, the janus faces watching
from the cliffs that tell us
what we want to know.

Dick Jones has been published in such magazines as Orbis, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry Ireland Review, Qarrtsiluni, Westwords, Mipoesias, Other Poetry, Rattlesnake and Ouroboros Review. In 2010 Dick received a Pushcart nomination for his poem Sea Of Stars. A collection, Ancient Lights, was published by Phoenicia Publishing in 2012. A translation of Blaise Cendrars’ epic poem ‘La Prose du Transsibérien…’, illustrated by Natalie D’Arbeloff, is due for publication by The Old Stile Press in 2015.