Pagan

by Tom Lagasse

Let’s just say there is a creator, 

a they/them who may/may not 

have a long white beard and be 

of European descent, a biblical 

grandfather who keeps tabulations 

in a giant notebook if they/them 

have not already upgraded to 

a tablet.  This is a God in man's 

likeness because a woman chose 

to eat an apple.   

Wouldn’t they/them want us 

to celebrate the spirit of beings

and things, this sentient world 

interconnected by breath? In doing 

so wouldn’t we honor mountain spirit, 

ocean spirit, river spirit, the fertility, 

fish, and animal spirits? The wheat 

spirit and spinach spirit, and 

even if I don’t like it as much,

the tomato spirit? As though each 

and everything had their own god, 

their own life force.  

I want to celebrate the 192 seasons 

the Japanese have in spring, 

and determine how many visit 

my home on this inauspicious hill 

whose farms have been eaten 

by progress. 

This celebration song is inspired by 

the coyotes, wild and full of longing 

who howl at the moon,  and the song 

of the sparrow, sharp like chipped ice, 

small and brief as though saying grace 

before she lowers her head to peck at 

the strewn birdseed. 

The capitalists and oligarchs demand

we buy into artificial intelligence, 

to wealth and its artifice. It will not stop 

them, or us, from dying. Isn’t it in 

the finiteness of things—the first snow, 

daffodils blooming, the ripening 

pumpkins, the blush of gold on a maple 

leaf when we return to our senses, and 

when we repeat our solemn vows, 

the promise to live wild like the wind.