THE CLERGY PRONOUNCE ON GOD'S PURPOSE FOR THE TSUNAMI If the purpose of the world's religions or their clergy is to explain that we are bad and all our suffering punishment then we are better off without belief better to stand stark and staring in the wake of the terrible wave better to let disaster knock us senseless, sensible that we are only small, strangely here, like all other living dying things, the stranded fish the torn up trees, the animals who sensed the tremor first and fled. Or if we must take life personally must make god a person, why not the god we long for, the one who sees us hurt and takes us in her arms or his and murmurs in our ear I'm here, beloved child, I'm here. THE SCHEME OF THINGS After snow sleet rain, rain sleet snow and more of the same for more days than I thought to count water finds new channels over and under ground down two hills to a certain spot in our driveway. I'm not talking about big puddles, runoff, or even flooding but two new springs welling up churning up the earth, making a fresh bed for fresh ground water. Our driveway is impassable our driveway is not a driveway. We park at a neighbor's house next to the main road, trudging to and from house and car through ice and mud and snow. I don't mind that we will be out some money I don't care that we have to carry groceries through the woods where I trace animal tracks. I am moved by the power of water to rearrange the land we imagine is ours. I am happy to be put in my place in this small, benign way to be put in my place in the scheme of things, the grand scheme of ground and water. ENCOUNTER IN THE SHOWER STALL Standing in the shower, hot water falling on the back of my neck, I see a spider climbing the wall trying to get away from the water falling, disrupting a life as real as any, as mine. I watch the spider and think we are alone together in the shower stall, the only two living beings. Then I remember all the molecules (quarks and so forth) locked in form, the plastic walls, plastic bottles of shampoo and I wonder do they want release? No I am not being anthropomorphic I am thinking of entropy, maybe it's not just disintegration, a "measure of randomness, disorder, and chaos in a system: S=k in P + c." Maybe it's form wanting freedom, wanting to return to falling water, deep dirt, circling wind and under over inside all, spider or the shower stall the fire, the fire. SHAPE-SHIFTING Everything shapes everything wind shapes the desert sand into waves waves shape the rock rock shapes falling water water shapes the air into clouds clouds shape the fall of light on the ground ground shapes the shade with hill and tree trees shift shape with the seasons seasons coming and going shape the earth as earth shapes the seasons with its tilt and the tilt of the earth spinning and spinning round and round the sun shapes everything. AVE MATERS after The Hail Mary Hail all mothers graceful or not God or goddess is with you, believe it or not Blessed are all women blessed are the fruits of our wombs whatever names, ridiculous or not, we choose for them and even when they're acting rotten. O mothers holy human mothers all our children are divine Long after they leave us they will curse us and pray to us now and in the hour of our death now and in the hour of their need.