Poet's vision

Old Pagan Gods

We have seen them at a distance
many times in old Mexico
around abandoned houses,
weedy places, Indian towns,
white skin, startled eyes,
in shadows, by rivers,
and seen smoke of their campfire in dark mountains.

Once we saw old deities in broad daylight!
A Mexican congregation
formed a circle outside their church in the bright sun,
women in brown, men in bright costumes,
children dressed as grownups and all began to circle dance
to their own live music,
breaking into couples, then reforming the circle,
over and over again, for an hour,
for an hour, without stopping!
Pagan deities came out of shadows, doorways, ravines
and stood with us,
watching in full daylight!
I could have touched one.

We have watched for them in far countries,
but they have, most believe,
been eradicated.
But they are elusive (an older society than
the white settlers, older than the Indians, as you know)

I am sure I have seen a few,
a child or an adult alone in the distance
around roads that follow
wooded rivers far from a city.
I have watched them masked at festival
dancing up the moon,
throwing necklaces from Mardi Gras floats,
discussing burnt umber and indigo blue,
at art colony in Todas Santos on the ocean.

We have even seen them in pilgrimages
bringing the baby Jesus
down the mountain to San Cristobal.

If we get to Heaven,
Heaven will be orderly.
Heaven will be well governed.
It will be beautiful, and blessed,
but if Pan does not pipe in the hills,
we will miss everything. .