His claim was simple: Nothing can’t exist
without a corresponding something here
to think of it. A ledge of brittle schist
and the runoff flood that made it disappear—
it all had to be dreamed up (void and rock),
if only by the grinding mind of God.
And God, I said, if only by His flock,
had to be thought of, too, His staff and rod,
against the glutted creek of unbelief.
And unbelief must be believed, he said:
An atheist keeps faith, without much grief,
that God was never there or God is dead.
As cloudy waters gleamed with hidden sun,
I asked if we conceive the truths we need.
He said he had no creed, nor wanted one,
but God sows truths in us like fallen seed.
Clay washed from hills had rusted fields to blood—
I asked him who imagined floods. He grinned.
God dreams the storm, he said, we wake in mud,
convinced the rain arrived because we sinned.