Before the gods were invented

Before golden rains or swans sullied maidenheads—
earlier than Mary’s Mother-of-God-swansong
or Woden’s bartering an eyeball for wisdom,
Before the golden calf, Loki, or Abraham’s covenant
with God—prior to Jesus, Joseph Smith
or Durga’s ride on a white tiger
Before Siddhartha’s footprints dimpled the earth
from India to China under the trunk
of an elephant-headed god, whose broken tusk
still waxes over a thousand Hindu thresholds
from the Malay Archipelago to Brooklyn,

Before the Renaissance’s Amida Buddha’s bronzed
hands poised in a mudra of contemplation,
or his eyes bent on a dogma of devotees
chanting: Amida, Amida, Amida—open
the pure land’s gates,
Before Dante’s hell yowled for the wailing whirlpool
of weeping sinners, before the invention of gods,

Maybe, they fished. Caught spotted catfish or silver trout.
Watched the birds. Sure, there were divisions—
but nobody divvied up heaven’s devotion of the earthy world.
Before the gods were invented, maybe they listened
to the wet, soily days of spring
and accepted death—dying like animals do.