Our gods love each other,
my gods yours, yours mine.
Hoary-haired, bearded lady,
stirring the pot
with her sister gods,
Black-cloaked, she lifts her wings,
glides toward you
over the sharpest crest
of moonstruck ridge
between the deep-cut river
and its bank.
She lights and surveys
the terrain that is hers,
prays in her travels
that the ones you pray to—
winged or jealous,
animal brothers or stone, shrubs, mountains,
invisible, nameless, or
Unnamable, alone,
semi-human—
will let her enter their lands.
She ducks her whiskery chin
in thanks
when she’s invited in
and is asked
to a seat at the table.
The gods break bread together,
or take a bowl of rice,
beans, lentils, or barley groats,
wrapped in a thin blanket
of any local grain, pounded,
or root—it might be
half-leavened wheat, baked on stones,
sprinkled with zaatar. It might be
taro cake or cornbread, flapjacks
or fry bread.
They sip mescal, sake,
fruit of the vine, mead,
or tea of fermented leaves, steeped
in fresh spring-water.
They feed each other’s children
the milk of goats, sheep, domesticated
buffalo, sweeten it
with honey that comes from
everywhere, every blossom.
My people lend you
our young women
to wet nurse your orphans.
They bring with them
a portion of harvest or fresh kill
when your harvest or hunt
is thin. Make peace
at the table, even if
It is only in our old stories,
told by the eldest child, skilled
at teaching the youngest
to ask questions.
Our gods
lie down together
in the night garden and share
their smooth and brittle skins,
their moons, their finely tuned orbits,
make space
for each other.
Our demons
love each other, too.
–
Norma Smith was born in Detroit and grew up in the Central Valley of California. She has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than 50 years. Norma holds a B.A. in Creative Writing, an M.A. in Education with a Special Focus on Equity Issues; and a Ph.D. in Ethnic & Cultural Studies. Her writing has been published in literary, political, and scholarly journals. She is the author of Home Remedy, a book of poems.
