God Walks Lightly
Clark Ashton SmithGod walks lightly in the gardens of a cold, dark star, Knowing not the dust that gathers in His garments’ fold; God signs Him with the clay, marks Him with the mould, Walking in the fields unsunned of a sad, lost war, In a star long cold. God treads brightly where the bones of unknown things lie, Pale with His splendor as the frost in a moon-bleached place; God sees the tombs by the light of His face, He shudders at the runes writ thereon, and His shadow on the sky Shudders hugely in space. God talks briefly with His armies of the tomb-born worm, God holds parley with the grey worm and pale, avid moth: Their mouths have eaten all, but the worm is wroth With a dark hunger still, and he murmurs harm With the murmuring moth. God turns Him heavenward in haste from a death-dark star, But His robes are assoilèd by the dust of unknown things dead; The grey worm follows creeping, and the pale moth has fed Couched in a secret golden fold of His broad-trained cimar Like a doom unsaid.
God here is not the answer to entropy — he is subject to it. He doesn’t know the dust gathering in his robes. He shudders at runes he cannot read. He flees from a dead star in haste. This is an almost Gnostic image: a deity who is himself lost, himself afraid. The final stanza is the masterstroke. God escapes — and the moth has already nestled in a fold of his robe. Like a doom unsaid. Death doesn’t chase God dramatically. It comes along quietly, patient, already winning.