Gnomes

In the backyard corner of a suburbia garden stands the Christ Gnome,

The Allah Gnome, The Krishna Gnome, and significant-other gnomes,

Having a smoke and chat about the big things happening in their lives,

Comparing notes on their being, how they came to be mythologized,

Unknown to the world before overthrowing various demonic powers,

Freed to get on with the work of miracles, demagoguery, dying and rising,

For the purposes of saving humankind from itself, invoking paradise,

Lifting through script the ignorant, the downtrodden, the despaired,

Who know not why they live in error, whether invisible demons lurk,

And though the religious worlds in which they inhabit differ, they are kin,

And rather than bicker and argue, they choose to do as garden gnomes do,

Standing as quaint sentinels, protecting fenced hearth, home and castle,

Appearing as though nondescript, inoffensive; as objects of amusement,

And be no threat to hooded questioners who dismiss gods as false beings,

Nor be objectified father figures desired for in earnest prayer, unreachable,

But for their mythologizing priests, in love with their god-given authority,

Offering salvation for the price of sinning and repentance; the suffering

Incompatible with an ordinary person’s being in the way of their doing,

Who cannot satisfy their individual needs without praying for them,

Desperate participants in the asylum of chaos, when unnamed fears arch

Over human life active from birth, with nurturing and ultimate death,

While looking on, garden gnomes like these preferring a smoke and a chat,

Who might talk amongst themselves in the appearance of being stone,

Painted and godlike as what might occur in the imagination of small

Children, sometimes ignored, sometimes laughed at, gnomes delighting in

Children visiting grandparents, unaware that all worshipped gods are

Actually gnomes, free from the strain of being the objects of perfection,

Who are neither anathemas to chronic belief nor idols for unbelief.