Every day a god from The Abundance by Annie Dillard
(Photo by Hans Mauerer)
Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time. I worship each god, I praise each day splintered down, splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading at dawn fast over the mountains split.
I wake in a god. I wake in the arms holding my quilt, holding me as best they can inside my quilt.
Someone is kissing me — already. I wake, I cry “Oh.” I rise from the pillow. Why should I open my eyes?
I open my eyes. The god lifts from the water. His head fills the bay. He is the Puget Sound, the Pacific; his breast rises from pastures; his fingers are firs; islands slide wet down his shoulders. Islands slip blue from his shoulders and glide over the water, the empty, lighted water like a stage.
Today’s god rises, his long legs flecked in clouds. He flings his arms, spreading colors; he arches, cupping sky in his belly; he vaults, vaulting and spread, holding all and spread on me like skin.
This is from Dillard’s essay “Paganism” from Holy the Firm.
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