Day One

Day One February 13, 2020

Day One

The earth was a right old mess

When God began to fashion

Earth and heaven

After the fashion

Of an ancient near eastern divinity

The sky and sea

At the start of the thing

A real mess

But just the thing

For a god to bless

With order

Made to order

Order in the making

Ordered to make itself right

 

It was chaos

But divine words were spoken

Let light be

Let it be

Let it have the right to be

A world ordered to be

Made to be in order

Sometimes out of order

That’s the way of the world

A way for a world to be

With a god with a way with words

 

No need for a battle

No plant yet or cattle

Chaos ceased

Still no person or beast

Such a waste of space

Lacking in taste

Nothing yet there to be tasted

And no one and nothing to do the tasting

 

It wasn’t nothing

Not for nothing

It wasn’t yet something

Yet wasn’t it something

To behold that mess

And feel an urge to bless

To bestow order

To organize

To arrange

What an arrangement

This has turned out to be

A symphony of voices

Collisions of choices

Just beyond the horizon

Like the first glimmer of rising

Of a yet-unmade sun

As yet mere potentiality

Seen only by eye of divinity

 

What do you say to a world you find this way?

God said let it be

Light is just right

Just what a world needs

A world that needs to be just

Just right?

Not yet right, nor just

Things a world cannot be

Without beings like you and me

It won’t be long

Until we too come along

With our longing to belong.

 

Daybreak

On the first unbroken day

There was even evening

And morning

No mourning

Break of day

Unbroken day

Day One

A clear day

Though not really clear

How many hours

How many powers

Replete with possibility

Of showers and towers still to come

Full of potential

Evoking awe reverential

From those who look back on the story

Of a world of pristine glory

From our world in which more chaos abounds

We struggle for order

Like older ancient near eastern deities

Longing for simplicity

Imagined tranquility

Nostalgia for lost innocence

Yet if we’re honest

Really glad the story didn’t stop there

Light, bright, but no life

No war or hatred

No death or birth

Such utter simplicity

But no you or me

 

Day one is just the beginning

A light shining not for itself

But for a world yet to come

Let us shine

Make a world still to come

Let it be

Let there be light

Let this be day one

Once again

Let every day

Be day one

One day

The day breaking

On a world as yet unbroken

With potential to become something better

Than the way we found it

Let me speak the words

That will bring a glimmer of light

To order matter

To value what matters

To repair what was shattered

Until the mirror is mended

And reflects the light of the first day

And shows the way

To a day still to come

Let it be

Let this be

Day One.


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