​​​

The gods

​

 

​I believe in the god of wood.

I believe in the sky god.

I believe in the god of spiders.

I believe in the god of fire.

And the god of dirt.

I believe in the god of smoke.

The god of snow, too. And clouds.

Also the god of sex.

And pots and pans.

I believe in the god of dance.

I believe in the god of story.

I believe in the god that sits between a deer’s antlers.

And the god that separates the stream of smells in a 

                                                                  dog’s nose.

I believe in the god of rivers.

And the god that lives in molecules, orbiting,

and the one that balances on the cusp of ridges, never falling 

                           south or east or north or west or down.

I believe in the god of earthquake, tectonically plated,

and the great fathomless god of the sea.

I believe in the loud god of woodpeckers,

I believe in the loping god 

and in music’s god, who never sleeps.

I believe in the god that ties us together and flings us apart.

I believe in the god of puzzles

and the one of desire and goodbye

and the god of unfolding, who loves seeds.

I believe in the god of twig

of leaf, of pig and of garbage.

I believe in the god of flies.

I believe in the god that soaks into the ground with blood

and the one whose ear is made for lullabies.

I believe in the god of mermaids and snakes,

I believe in the little god that lives in candleflame

and the dirty one that lives in the toilet.

I believe in the god of fleas

and supernovas

and of cotton spun from those tufts never made for spinning,

and the grimy one that lives on the edge of every coin

and also the one that travels between all animals,

                                                  in the beam of the eye.

And I believe in the gods of molder and combustion,

microbe, worm, and flame

who meet us in the afterlife

where we disappear

until the picky gods of phosphorous and carbon

begin playing with their blocks again.

 

​

​

​

 

 

Tobey Hiller’s publications include four books of poetry, a novel, and a collection of surreal tales, Flight Advice: A Fabulary (Unlikely Books). Her most recent book of poems is Crow Mind (FLP). Her work appears in many journals and six anthologies, including Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry in California (Scarlet Tanager Press) and great weather for Media (New York). Her current poetry ms. before anything is dust was a finalist in Catamaran Literary Reader’s 2024 Poetry Book Contest. She is at work on a collection of flash and hybrid pieces and a group of realist short stories.