Genesis 1-5, A Poem

by Xi E.R. Stoddart

1. In Beginning

I imagine They went down to the water that sprung up
And They took the remnants.
The mud and the dirt, the stars and the minerals.
From some great explosion.
And with it became the potter
Threw me on the wheel and pinched and pulled and sung.

They say it was a breath
But what type of breath is silent completely?
I imagine They sang to me,
Blew life into me with song.
Hummed a lullaby as a mother to an infant.
A sound like thousands of birds I would name,
Names not yet said, not yet born.
From the silence They sang to me,
And I lived.

I remember I came to in Eden
Working my body to work the body I had left.
Connected to Them by a song I could not reall.

Was it like wind through the branches of the trees?

The bubble and babble of the river?

The thump of plow and how hitting ground?

Or the slight exhale of my faces?
Loud and Joyous in thanks for living-
And made like Them.

They said it was not good for me to be alone
I needed a companion,
A helper
The opposite to go in front and push against me.
And so They created beings of the same mud as me.
But They hid the process
Bringing each only when it was finished.

And I did what I was told in wonder at Them
In wonder at creation.
Naming each being great and small.
The beings that growled and sung
Bit and leaped
Swam and Flown.
Got up from the wheel and walked away.

But none were like me
With my faces and hands
Walking on legs not numbered.
Praying to see the moment I was made.

2. And so God put us down/The being goes under

They did not tell me
Or at least the scriptures mention nothing of telling
They did not say “You will go to sleep now.”
There was no burn of holy anesthesia,
Just the fear as my eyes closed
A pair in front and in behind, both watching the world go black.

I imagine that I dreamt
Dreamt dreams of a splitting
Splitting the two in half
Or was it instead fusing—
Fusing the multiple into two

They said They “took a rib”
”Took” like “seizing”
Like “capturing”
Like “being taken out of”
”Taken away”

They said they closed up the flesh at that point
Meaning I had a wound
Meaning there was blood
Did I simply miss it seep into the ground I came from?
Some morbid return home?

When I awoke I felt my missing side
Blinked a single pair of eyes
A single mind, no longer a multiple
A body with two arms and legs
A body with one nose and one mouth
And I screamed.

When They brought her to me
I cried “This One, at last!”
An “at last” for an ordeal being over
A “this one” as a sort of blame perhaps
Or a welcome
For I knew she came from me.

I said
”Bone of my Bone
Flesh of my flesh”
And the world Celebrated it
They said “hence”
And on two unsteady legs,
I left my Creator to my wife
And clung to her instead.

3. Memory

There’s a memory
A faint, fleeting, memory
Where I walked in the garden with many legs,
With my other
When we were both one.
We walked with Them, and They loved us,
But saw we were lonely.

Perhaps I was always sleeping
Or I just slept too and forgot.
When I awoke I was fearful.
But when I met the Creator, I met him.
He called “This one, at last!”
And I knew he knew
Holding that memory too.
And I knew I was welcomed
For we were both bone and dust.

When my husband and I walked in the garden
We met the serpent
Leaning against the tree.
I told him we could not eat of it
For despite it all I trusted our Creator.

But the Serpent said,
”Die, you will not die!
Rather your eyes will be opened
And you will become like Gods
Knowing good and evil.”

And it was not the living that urged me,
Nor the wisdom gained
Nor the delight to my senses the fruit provided
Those were all true
But rather it was the mention of eyes
For there was another memory
Of two pairs of eyes
One in front
One behind
But both closing at the same time.

And I craved the memory more than the fruit
I think my husband did too
For he took willingly from my hand.
Because we wished to be like the creator
To know Them better,
To know the why of the violence inflicted on us
Despite the love They had for us
And the love we had for Them.

But we did not return to each other,
When our eyes opened they were not behind our head
Rather on our chests and loins
And we saw we were naked
And we knew.

4. I saw a flaming sword

My mother says to the west there are cherubim
Winged sphinxes
Holding a flaming sword
Guarding the east gate of Eden.

She trembles in fear of them
And grasps her stomach
When I ask she always says
”It’s just a phantom pain”

I can’t imagine Eden
And neither can my Bother.
My father speaks of the time in the garden
Tilling soil without toil
Naming every creature before him.
He often wakes up screaming,
About false eyes on the back of his head.

I thought about my Mother
I thought about my Father
And I even thought to include my Brother in my prayers.
So I gave God the cattle I had raised
A firstborn of all firstborns.
And They were pleased.
But They didn’t lead me back to Eden.

My brother gave offering too
A fruit from the ground he tilled.
I said “do you wish to find Eden”
Eyes glinting, and with nodding head
He said;
”Let us go into the field”
And I followed.

While we walked,
I looked towards the sun
I saw the time pass by
And as it set
I said “Let us return”
And looked to the west.
In the sun I saw the sword
And I saw my brother
Moving down to me with a swing
The sun sharpened
My ears rang
My eyes closed
And I was taken away.

5. 930/9:30

There was once a being
A being of eyes
Made in the image of a God unseeable
A God who was a potter,
Known only by Their innate presence
In everything They created.

One day the being was split
Eyes dissolved into two pairs
Two heads
Two separate bodies
And the bodies were cast out
Out of paradise
Cursed to toil in pain for the rest of their lives.

And so the husband knew his wife
She gave birth twice.
And one son killed the other
And the husband knew his wife again
And she gave birth
When he was 130.

I do not know how old she was
When she gave birth to the last named child
But after that birthing
She disappears.
She will not be mentioned again.
How old she lived,
Is unknown
But we say the husband lived 930 years.

How many children she had
How many times she toile din labor
For an unknown number of sons and daughters
I do not know.

I like to imagine she lived to the same age as him
The full 930 years
That the two reconciled
Wept together at the loss of what they once were
And when they died
I imagine that the ground shook
The earth split to swallow the bodies
It churned them into dust
And the dust mixed
It mingled
It formed eyes
It formed stars
And the two beings separated
Were united one again.
And were returned to Eden.