THE GOD WHO

5 0 Y T H E G O D W H O J A M E S R I C H A R D S O N It was the small gods we talked to before words, though soon enough we forgot, and sadly, that what dawn or the shine of hips made the heart do was prayer. The god of a particular slow bend in the river, his friend god of the white boats swung around it, gods of moderately impressive rocks, of spots warm where someone was just sitting, of the deep sharp scents of shoes, of sounds whose direction is unclear, of silver linings: they appreciated whatever small appreciations came their way and, ignored, were not so much vengeful as doubtful in that early world, where the workload, if it can be called that, of their divinely ine≈cient bureaucracy, left plenty of time to enjoy the specialties of their fellows, god of just sitting around, god of the nasty slider, of low battery gleeps, of wine that gets better by the glass, the god (the high god!) of too excited to sleep. Actually, with considerable power over one thing, or a couple – a book maybe, software, distinctive laughs – but only average at, say, getting lovers or starting a car, they were a lot like us. Distinctions, in fact, 5 1 R were not rigidly maintained, it being proverbially di≈cult to be sure you’re immortal or that you’re not. There was intermarriage, bargaining, and respectful confusion (once language got going) about what constituted worship and what was just delighted saying of the names of things, which persists. So as for the god of the squeak of clean hair, of your hand out the car window wind-lifted, of the small shades under hat brims and not excluding the banned gods of leaf-fires and tobacco, Oh and definitely including she of the co√ee-breath and fine cold hands who says Sit down friend and let’s see, let’s just see, and certainly my other god, he of Least Resistance who decrees what is going to happen anyway, who listens only to prayers that end Let all be as thou willst, who grants only my wish to believe in him, and with the possible exception only of the god of making a list of all the other gods, who gets distracted and forgets so many that suddenly the universe is His and only His, praise them. ...