I am of god, a god-thing, a sort of man-clay-godish thing but you’ll have to excuse me now, I’m going into an American shop.
Long ago when I was new to the market, wheeled in a stroller, I thought the shining goods must mean there’s divinity about, even though I’d no concept of it. Now it’s just the bloody monolith of store, as the poet Anselm Hollo once said.
“They ain’t no god in these canned beans!” I want to shout.
Of course I don’t shout in the supermarket. I hardly say a thing.
That’s how you know you’ve been winnowed and shrunk.
You also know all the beautiful fruits and vegetables are the products of severe exploitation. Some days I think it would be better to eat my own arms off than partake of the quasi slave labor produce.
So I shop at organic places.
This means I’m privileged.
God seems further away by the hour.
And who am I, you might ask, complaining, while living in a land of comparative abundance?
Just trying to reinstall the sacred in the canned goods aisle.
And who am I, you might ask, to take upon himself such a thing?
I’m just a very old child.
Planet of the Blind 