Imagine
                    creation—

          See as though standing there
          (though there is no there yet
                    only nowhere, Nothing,
                    a space not even black because black hasn’t been
                    created yet,
                              only absence,
                                                            Void,
                                                                                          Nothing—)

          the apocalyptic eruption
          (apocalypse, apokalupsis, revelation, the opening of the curtains of the world)
          at the sound of a Voice
                              that carries through emptiness
                    (a scientific impossibility, that, but
                              impossibility never stopped this Voice yet)
                                        to tear back the face of Nothing
                                        and reveal Something,
                    raw light from everywhere bursting forth—“Let there be Light!”—
                    dazzling your eyes—
                    creating color,
                              light waiting only for more to be made
                              that it might illuminate
                                        (for what light can shine with nothing to shine on?) . . .

Can you imagine?
Perhaps a humbler image, analogy, a comprehensible scale
                    —human scale, not God’s—
                              his cabinets are too high for us to reach
                              to bring down his tools of creation

          Have you ever known writers,
                    had the privilege of sitting among them?
          Listen to the bursting-forth of worlds in their speech,
                              new creations birthing in the cross-cutting ideas—

                                        “What if we had a story in which
                                                            the hero turned into the villain
                                                  and the villain
                                                                      the hero?”

                    “I’m playing with a world where
                                        Israel stayed faithful and became a great empire—
                              what would that look like?”

                                        “The idea is that the essence of each object, its name,
                                                  is music, and if you know the music
                              you have power to control the object.”

                    “What do you know about dragons?
                                        I have this dragon who keeps wanting to change color on me.”

                                                            “Do you think—
                              can I get away with putting coffee into a fantasy story?”

          again, language shapes the world
                    as they speak and bring
                                        time
                                        space
                                        being
                    into focus.
                              It’s the same thing, really,
                              or at least the same sort of thing, this speaking,
                              as the grand re-echoing Word of God—
                    as he spoke
                              (“Let there be Light!”)
                                                  so they speak
          and there is light shining across plains, mountains, seas, faces,
                    lighting the words and deeds
                    of heroes and villains
                              of all the people in between—
                              you and me as it were recaptured
                                        in other times and places that never were
                    though they often should have been

Photo ©2018 Gerd Altmann.  Free for use.