And God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
"I'm lonely —
I'll make me a world."
And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said, "That's good!"
Then God reached out and took the light in His hands,
And God rolled the light around in His hands
Until He made the sun;
And He set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said, "That's good!"
Then God himself stepped down —
And the sun was on His right hand,
And the moon was on His left;
The stars were clustered about His head,
And the earth was under His feet.
And God walked, and where He trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.
Then He stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And He spat out the seven seas;
He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed;
He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled;
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.
Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around His shoulder.
Then God raised His arm and He waved His hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And He said, "Bring forth! Bring forth!"
And quicker than God could drop His hand.
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said, "That's good!"
Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that He had made.
He looked at His sun,
And He looked at His moon,
And He looked at His little stars;
He looked on His world
With all its living things,
And God said, "I'm lonely still."
Then God sat down
On the side of a hill where He could think;
By a deep, wide river He sat down;
With His head in His hands,
God thought and thought,
Till He thought, "I'll make me a man!"
Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in His own image;
Then into it He blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.
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Comments
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Great Poem
From guest Kiera Johnson (contact)
I think this is a great poem. And I think it's great how you can come up with a story about how you think god started to make the world. And also I think I would be interested in more of your work and anything else you might do. The only reason that I found out about you was because of my performing arts teacher Mrs. Greene. She's really stressing for the class to give emotion about the poem, that way we can do a play on it. But knot to many people are doing well. Anyway I think its a great poem. -
Wonderful Poems
From guest Phylicia (contact)
This poem is the best poem i've have ever read. I really like this poem -
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Great Poem
From guest LaSonja Graves (contact)
My toddler(ages 2-5) class used this for a presentation at church. They learned every word of it. It was very good. They were so into all of the moves that I showed them. Just seeing them excited about doing something for the Lord made me feel really good. I am now teaching it to the after school program for us to present at a dinner for different ministries in Mississippi. -
The Creation
From guest Judith Davis (contact)
This poem is still beautiful and viable today. I have been teaching Genesis and this brings the Scripture to life. -
Great poetry
From guest Donnie (contact)
I first read this forty three years ago and it still as refrreshing today as the day I first read it. -
From guest Louvenia (contact)
A great poem.I recite this poem in church. It was a sermon. I think it is so poweful work. A MUST read -
This is a great poem!!!.
From guest Vanessa (contact)
I am reciting this poem for the Miss Monroe Comprehensive High School pageant and this is really great. I LOVE IT!!!. -
It is just a poem. it doesn't claim to be scripture that everyone has to read and agree with. It is beautiful stuff with a powerful message.
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This poem is great! I am in the midst of getting my kids to memorize it bit by bit. This poem was never meant to be taken literally. IT'S A POEM! He weaves such a tapestry with his words. His use of similie is masterful. I love where he likens God as a mother leaning over her baby to describe God's feelings of creating and his feelings of tenderness over his creation. His metaphors are luscious. It wasn't meant to be used as a basis for Scriptual authenticity. It is one african american man's artistic and creative view of the creation of the world and universe. It's a poem folks. And a very good one at that.
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A+ -- Stunning
This is a brilliant poem. Johnson transcribed the sermons of black preachers in the south at the turn of the last century. They used their sermons to tell the stories of the Bible and did so in such a beautiful way that Johnson didn't have to do much to turn their sermons into poetry. My church uses this poem in place of the first chapter of Genesis for our Easter Vigil, where we are gathered around a fire telling the stories of God. It's one of the favoirte parts of the service for many. What a glorious piece of work. -
sorry, \"F\" grade
Unfortunately there is much unscriptural content. God is never spoken of as lonely. He said, let there be light--He didn't smile it. God did not come down to shape the mioutains and valleys. See John 1:14 to find out when He DID come down.
God did not spit out the seven seas. There was no rainbow until Gen 9:13 after the flood.There was no rain UNTIL the flood--no lightning either!
The Scripture does not say the waters cooled the earth. God did spend a lot of time thinking before He made man. It was His plan.
God the Father tells us to think of Him as Father. Jesus prayed "Our Father". The words relating God to a woman are false doctrine.
God did not toil; He immediately shaped the clay and made man. His image is not a physical one as hinted here---it is "holiness". God made man without sin.
The only redeeming feature I find in this poem is that it states accurately that "Man became a living soul". This is better than the NIV, which says man became a living being--like the animals. -
i don't understand this poem
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Very Good
In this poem I can envision God. I also see God making the world as everything at hand. It is a good lesson on Genesis in plain American English that everybody can understand that a person can go through without reading Genesis. -
Fine poem
I liked this poem quite a lot. Recently I've read a good exegesis of the book of Genesis that contained a translation of the Babylonian Creation myth and the Babylonian flood story too. It is interesting to learn what those people thought, and how some of those ideas related to the book of Genesis and its account of creation. The mountains of Ararat, for instance. Archeological and or writing research has shown that the name Ararat actually was the Hebrew transliteration (then to English later) of the name of an ancient kingdom in the northen region of Mesopotamia named, what was it? Oh well, I'll post it later perhaps. The kingdom was annexed and erased from subsequent history by the Assyrians in the 7th or 8th century bce. From that it may be inferred that the flood story was written by the Jews before the 7th or 8th century bc.
Interpreting the bible is difficult in some ways. The indeterminacy of translation creates the phenomenon of eisegesis, or reading into the Bible things and meanings, opinions and facts that aren't actually in it, because one's own knowledge subjectively is the interpreter...and it of course can be faulty.
I've written a few creation reinterpretation poems myself based on synthesis of contemporary scientific cosmology and readings in biblical studies. None of course were as well written poetically as this poem.
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