“I Got Nothing God”

**note, this was written in a few quick moments of throwing Teddy a strand of willow tree and saying “look at this!!” or taking a bath when he napped, or seeing the evening sky when we were playing on the floor and turning my back to write, I added a few lines at the end when Trevor was (home!) this Saturday morning and early afternoon and getting Teddy up from a nap which was amazing and helpful. Therefore, it’s piece-meal and impressionistic but I think it works and hopefully you will to:

I meet with Him in the wind blowing through the willows

They swish their tails as He speaks

Sometimes I’m half-submerged in a bath

“You know what, I don’t know God!

I freaking don’t!” (I shrug, feeling haphazard and soggy) “I didn’t create everything! I guess it’s pretty arrogant for a thirty-one year old to think that she has some kind of a grasp on reality to tell you how things should be. I guess you can just handle it God, you handle all this—“ (I swirl my hand in the water, a motion indicating the general swirling of chaos— “you handle it because I got nothing.”

Outside, He goes on shepherding the birds, those black boomerang-like silhouettes— they all sweep through a turn so seemlessly and disappear into the chokecherry

He continues to push aside the clouds like a jig saw puzzle until the light is just right

Or however his mood feels it should be

I hear the crickets and the frogs and again the swishing of willows and cattails

“I got nothing God. You know what’s best. I really freaking don’t.”

The colors of the brush are starting to reflect October: goldenrods and other tawny browns, a mockingbird feather, and maroon wilting of leaves and suddenly I’m just like the little snail snailing across our path, I make sure the stroller and the dog don’t demolish him. How nice of God to repeatedly move the strollers and the dogs out of my path instead of demolishing me, though sometimes it’s really more than I deserve.

(Later)

..

We all sit to gawk at the clouds tonight, the raindrops sitting like the little stars-the ones you get in a can of Campbell’s chicken and stars soup- they’re sitting just as cheerful and plump on the window pane as in a soup bowl.

The heavens are one of my favorite love songs

Today there’s a base note of bright florescent orange like the glow of my kittens eyes as she actually responds and comes from her hiding to my infant son who is doing the “come here” hand signal with thumb and pointer as if rubbing a blade of grass in between the two

I verbalize “come here” and the kitten tsk tsk with my tongue which he hasn’t quite mastered yet. Miracle of miracles! She comes, on my son’s lap, she sits and purrs.

The clouds are moving so fast it’s like watching a sculptor work with raw wet clay- the shape is constantly in motion, colors that would make both manic Van Gogh and inspired Monet covetous.

There’s so much war stuck drumming up in those clouds of my mind and also the ones outside, but I can tell these ones are victorious, a war’s end speaking only of peace eternal

I’m plunged inside the vastness of His art and I’m all sponge-y and water logged with emotion and all the people that seem to see me as a problem

For being honest like the sky, for being honest like only I know how to be and I’m powerless, over everything, absolutely everything—except maybe myself sometimes and

“I got nothing God. I’ve got nothing, it’s all up to you now.”