What God Knew

when he knew nothing.  A leaf

looks like this, doesn’t it? No one

to ask. So came the invention

of the question too, the way all

at heart are rhetorical, each leaf

suddenly wedded to its shade. When God

knew nothing, it was better, wasn't it?

Not the color blue yet, its deep

unto black.  No color at all really,

not yet one thing leading to another, sperm

to egg endlessly, thus cities, thus

the green countryside lying down

piecemeal, the meticulous and the trash,

between lake and woods

the dotted swiss of towns along

any state road. Was God

sleeping when he knew nothing?  As opposed

to up all night (before there was night)

or alert all day  (before day)?  As opposed to that,

little engine starting up by itself, history,

a thing that keeps beginning

and goes past its end. Will it end, this

looking back?  From here, it's one shiny

ravaged century after another,

but back there, in a house or two: a stillness,

a blue cup, a spoon, one silly flower raised up

from seed.  I think so fondly of the day

someone got lucky

and dodged the tragedy meant for him. It spilled

like sound from a faulty speaker

over an open field. He listened from

a distance. God-like, any one of us

could say.