calculating the size of god

An hour before the sun breaks over the roof,

I stagger to the alarm clock app

where my phone sits

on the laundry hamper.

Whatever dream was playing

gone before I put the coffee on

and turn on the shower.

At five twenty this morning,

my mind is grappling with

the consideration of how vast

a heart must be to hold

all the suffering on this planet,

in this universe, in the billions

of galaxies, the streets and cities,

jungles and deserts,

kitchens and bedrooms,

boardrooms and alleys.

How big is God?

big enough to enclose all that?

are there worlds where the greatest miseries

are hangnails and rained out picnics?

is there some cosmic balance sheet

where children's laughter

and a singer's soaring song of joy

eclipse the crib deaths,

rape and slaughter,

war and famine,

the quiet beating in the schoolyard

no one intervened to stop?

It must all fit together,

the sum of all the pieces

make a whole that has no boundary

or edge, no meaning unless

everything is included,

if meaning is even possible.

I stepped into the shower

savored the warm water on my head

with my eyes closed.

When I opened them and

reached for the shampoo

I saw a panicked spider

scrambling along the edge of the tub

trying to avoid being swept down the drain.

Should I let it?

When my mind has just been

struggling with the question

of how ungraspable the vastness

of soul must be to hold the universe?

I shut off the water and stepped out

dripping on the floor.

fetched a piece of toilet paper

and gently trapped the spider.

I put it in the garbage bag

under the kitchen sink,

alive and ready to go out

to the can on the driveway

when I'm dressed.

A small mercy, very small because

my heart wasn't big enough this morning

to go out to the street dripping wet and naked