I will remind the reader that the perplexities into which the poor old gods fell at the time of the final triumph of Christendom . . . offer striking analogies to former sorrowful events in their god-lives; for they found themselves. . . . compelled to flee ignominiously and conceal themselves under various disguises on earth. . . . several, whose shrines had been confiscated, became wood-choppers and day-laborers in Germany.
—Heinrich Heine, “Gods in Exile”
For some reason, we know not what, his childhood . . . lodged in him whole and entire. He could not disperse it. And therefore, as he grew older, this impediment at the center of his being, this hard block of pure childhood, starved the mature man of nourishment. . . . But since childhood remained in him entire, he could do what no one else has ever been able to do—he could return to that world; he could recreate it, so that we too become children again.
—Virginia Woolf, “Lewis Carroll,” in The Moment and Other Essays
Most of the ancient groves are gone, sacred to Kuan Yin
And Artemis, sacred to the gods and goddesses
In every picture book the child is apt to read.
—Robert Hass, “State of the Planet”
do you know what it’s like to live
someplace that loves you back?
—Danez Smith, “summer, somewhere”