God Spills across the Grass

I read God but it was really gold, gold

spills, it does, across the grass

like pennies 

or an afternoon

or that afternoon a week ago

you and me up at the lake

how I said I don’t want to believe

in nothing

as we sat on driftwood, talking,

our pockets full of beach glass

but there is no way to know

if God comes after this.

I couldn’t find words for

how it would be, walking

without you, there, if,

someday, and if so,

I’d want to know you were there

somehow and that prayer  

is not just another word for sadness.

There are no answers

except maybe in the way light

spills across the water,

or the way

deer we never saw

left tracks while we were talking.

Maybe it’s all a gift, spilled—

the way I went on thinking

about how trust works

and then the potter in his shop

pulled a bug from my hair

and set it free and said send

me a check when we didn’t have

enough and if we can’t trust

each other what have we?

It’s how I live and I trust you,

he said, and gold or God

or something just like that,

spilled into our hands.

~Jeanie Tomasko