Two poems by Jaime Sabines, translated by serano
I love God. He’s a magnificent old man who doesn’t take himself seriously. He likes playing and games, and sometimes a hand gets away from him and he breaks our leg or crushes us entirely. But this happens because he’s a little near-sighted and kind of clumsy with his hands.
He’s sent us some exceptional people like Buddha, Christ, Mohammad, or my aunt Chofi, so that they can tell us to behave ourselves. But this doesn’t worry him too much: he knows us. He knows that the big fish will devour the small one, that the big lizard will devour the little one, that man will devour man. And that’s why he invented death: so that life—not you or me—life, is forever.
Now the scientists come out with their theory of the Big Bang... But what does it matter if the universe is expanding forever or contracting? This is only an issue for travel agencies.
I love God. He has put the galaxies in order and arranges the traffic on the ants’ roads. And he’s so playful and cheeky that the other day I discovered that he had made—against the attack of antibiotics—mutant bacteria!
Old wise man or exploring child, when he stops playing with his tin soldiers of flesh and bone, he makes fields of flowers or paints the sky in an incredible way.
He moves one hand and makes the sea, he moves the other and makes the forest. And when he passes above us, clouds remain, pieces of his breath.
They say that sometimes he gets angry and makes earthquakes, and sends storms, rivers of fire, out-of-control winds, floodwaters, punishments, and disasters. But this is nonsense. It’s the Earth that changes—it shakes and grows—when God moves away.
God is always in a good mood. That’s why he’s my parents’ favorite, my children’s chosen, the closest of my brothers, the woman most beloved, the peas and the pod, the oldest stone, the softest petal, the sweetest smell, the bottomless night, the bubbling of light, the wellspring that I am.
I like, I love God. God bless God.
Original text