The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam 2)

And then the Wolf in turn will pass,

And turn to grass the Deer will graze.

All Creatures know that some must die

That all the rest may take and eat;

Sooner or later, all transform

Their blood to wine, their flesh to meat.

But Man alone seeks Vengefulness,

And writes his abstract Laws on stone;

For this false Justice he has made,

He tortures limb and crushes bone.

Is this the image of a god?

My tooth for yours, your eye for mine?

Oh, if Revenge did move the stars

Instead of Love, they would not shine.

We dangle by a flimsy thread,

Our little lives are grains of sand:

The Cosmos is a tiny sphere

Held in the hollow of God's hand.

Give up your anger and your spite,

And imitate the Deer, the Tree;

In sweet Forgiveness find your joy,

For it alone can set you free.

From The God's Gardeners Oral Hymnbook

77

REN. SAINT JULIAN AND ALL SOULS

YEAR TWENTY-FIVE

The new moon's rising now, out over the sea: Saint Julian and All Souls has begun.

I loved Saint Julian's when I was little. Each of us kids would make our own Cosmos, out of stuff we'd gleaned. Then we'd stick glittery things onto it and hang it on a string. The Feast that night was round foods, like radishes and pumpkins, and the whole Garden would be decorated with our shining worlds. One year we made the Cosmos balls out of wire and put candle ends inside them: that was really pretty. Another year we tried to make Divine Hands for holding the Cosmos balls, but the yellow plastic housework gloves we came up with looked very strange, like zombie hands. Anyway you don't picture God as wearing gloves.

We're sitting around the fire -- Toby and Amanda and me. And Jimmy. And the two Gold Team Painballers, I have to include them. The light flickers on all of us and makes us look softer and more beautiful than we really are. But sometimes it makes us darker and scarier too, when the faces go into shadow and you can't see the eyes, only the eye sockets. Deep pools of blackness welling out of our heads.

My body hurts all over, but at the same time I feel so joyful. We're lucky, I think. To be here. All of us, even the Painballers.