If I Met God

If I met God in a snow-kissed wood, Would he sit beside the fire’s warm glow, And share my wine and quail egg soup, And marvel at the falling snow. And speak of truths I’ve overlooked, But listen without a tilted head, Beneath a canopy of linty pines, With two bellies fully fed. Now he would think it rather odd, This battered man in tattered shoes, In a chilly wood with notebook and quill, With nothing more, but my dreams to lose. Not once would he pray or sing a hymn, Nor surmise a confession, my list of woes, Nor wish for a thawed breeze to hie, Nor ponder the direction longing goes. Nor criticize my fondness of another’s bride, Like the full moon married to the night, Thus only spy but never reach, To her golden shores of Leyte. Then God would stand and tip his cap, Without a final word would go, And wander off into the dark, So I might marvel at the falling snow.