How Animal Procurators Made a God
Not so much a God as a procurator
That can hear the breaking of carbon double bonds
The crackle of released oxygen and nitrogen
The atomic fire warms our newly born,
Grateful, we construct some little worship there
The deer retreat to the island
As the river rises and covers
The scrabble and brush of edges
The water is always rapid and cold
Blowing up standing waves over boulders where
Young grasses will appear soon
As all that liquid evaporates and exposes new green
Banks erode where the clay can trap a fawn
Downed cottonwoods lean and tangle
The island slides through the water
The deer must know where it will take them
Our heavy expensive brain labors over these things
We design things from the collective
Procurators of other animals, also besieged
Water rising and drowning slowly, untended,
Maybe proof of an honest God, not us
That we truly do not want to ever find
