What Does Your God Look Like?

Listening to Giving Birth, Finding Form with Isabelle Allende, Jean Shinoda Bolen and Alice Walker. "What does your God look like?," a woman in the audience asks during the Q&A. So many ways to answer, but perhaps my answer would go something like this:

A peaceful presence
announced by the wind tinkling a chime.
A carnival of raucous spirits
dancing like dervishes at Pentecostalal tent meeting.
A beautiful face hidden behind ninety-nine veils.
Sun, moon, stars.
Deep space and all.
Infinity. Possibility.
Ideas daring to dress themselves
in the finery of matter
The pathway paved by simple words of prayer
leading to the resplendent sanctum of the heart.
The perfect, round symmetry of seasons.
Rain and thunder plus the blooming rose.
The pregnant belly and milk-full breasts.
A heart that alternately celebrates and aches.
The vastness of the ocean
pouring into
the open sky.