Don't Call Me Collect---

The next two poems go together and are written about a subject we all think about from time to time. “Don't Call me Collect” was actually written in the late 90's, “Route 27,” about ten years later. There are a couple things about the subject of religion and God that you can be sure of. First, the more certain you are that you have answers, the more likely it is that you don't, and second, even if you are an atheist or agnostic, if there is a God, you'd definitely like to meet him/her even if were just to bitch at them for awhile :)  After you write something like "Route 27" people ask you if you believe in God.  Well, to be honest, I've never really figured the God thing out completely, but I'm pretty sure that if there is a God, finding them has more to do with the questions we each ask than the answers any one of us has ever found. 

Don't call me collect --God

Perhaps on some golden throne

alive in the sky, you watch over each of us

--rain warm love, bathing one by one

man and sparrow with most tender care

Or, like a child at play

did you make the clock your grand experiment?

then, called to dinner, you plan to be back at eight

wondering if we'll still be tocking

Are you a big ashen bearded daddy?

with all the answers up there

will you spank us forever if we don't believe?

Maybe you're a cosmic hippie

you say "Hey don't you remember?

ten thousand years ago

we all stood at Salisbury in ecstasy"

Then, with hand to forehead you say

"Or maybe it was nineteen seventy-one

you know, all that acid still gets to me"

Are you a wrinkled old man?

stuttering, the very edge of senility

you wait at the gate, white picket complacency

We come home for a hug and obligatory visit

the younger playing Grandfather for a free dime

Perhaps you are a crone, ancient and wise

living in rock, road, brook, and tree

You made a hard, wondrous, magical land

where stumbling, we acolytes slowly learn of beauty

With fire on your finger tips

maybe you throw lightning bolts

make floods, cause the sky to darken

Perhaps you'll let five thousand faithful in

"All the rest be damned!" you say as the earth quakes

Perhaps one time, some time, ever time

we'll be sitting in the park, you and I

Muhammad, Gautama and Einstein play dice across the way

cool green grass, white daisies, blue sky, shade trees

I say, "You know, I wondered always if you were a figment"

You say, "Don't we all, my friend, begin and end in fantasy?"

Dewey Dirks Copyright 2010