I should tell you now that I do not know God very well
but let me explain snow. It unfolds.

It is quiet, a sweeping whiteness
hungry for our houses.
We say, Goodbye house.

Now, you may never say goodbye
because either you or snow may stop arriving
and I am quiet when I think of you
and I think of you whenever I turn on the news.

Here is a story that will please you:
a young man found an octopus
curled in the sand too far
from the lip of the ocean.
When the man returned
the octopus to the water,

the octopus swam to his foot
and touched the foot with a tendril arm,
lit her body with patterns of prismatic recognition
like a painting I once saw
of a supplicant kissing the foot of Jesus.

I will not make a habit of telling
you what to imagine, though I will tell you
about jellyfish. Jellyfish are translucent teacups,
umbrellas surrounded by rain.

They once threw themselves into the mouth
of a nuclear reactor. Norwegian engineers
pulled their bodies from the machinery
in fistfuls of slick parachute.
Animals are inconvenient.

You are inconvenient. That must be how God works,
by sending the most smooth and irritating warriors
into the fray. A warrior is someone

who drives their shoulder into time,
who pearls their bones in it.
I’m sorry that I can’t stop

telling you how beautiful the world is.
Maybe there will be ground for you
to dig your hands in. I don’t know.

It is unfair to ask you anything so I won’t.
Instead, I will feed your body
into the mouth of time, drawn out, oceanic.
Don’t worry. Before long, I’ll follow.