On The Block Where God Does Not Exist – a poem by Deborah A. Bennett

On The Block Where God 
Does Not Exist 

on the block where God
does not exist 
God is everywhere 
scaffolding news stand 
sidewalk street
at the diner lingering 
over donut and coffee
watching the clothes
in the dryer spin
in the laundromat 
after midnight 
guitar and singing 
in the half-dark at the
bottom of the subway stair
blessing the sunday cornbread 
and greens and ringed hamhocks 
he stands on the bus
sometimes next to us
his fingers tracing the 
silver chair there on the
back porch in the rose sky
at dusk a great joy
curves up on his lips
his eyes alit like burning 
incense everywhere. 

Deborah A. Bennett is an American poet who was long-listed for The Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Award for 2023. Her work is spiritual in nature and inspired by her lifelong love of long walks through the city and in the wild.