In the beginning, God created.

Artist’s soul attuned to string everything from nothing formed an idea in his head that gave him delight. A black and barren expanse mutely marked a starting point from which the Spirit hovered, wrinkling the waters, suspended in pregnant pause before the birth of what was to be.

Clear, sharp, and musical, his words danced into that dark. He spoke the world into existence by calling forth the light, and there was white-flash of bright. Here it all begins, eternity condensed in constraint of time that began to tick at the first kick of world within its womb.

This pleased him who sparked the void, and he stamped his approval, declared it good.

Then, a prism aglow, He pulled the light from dark, stretched the two to differentiate the split of hours. Opaque shadow sifts in the froth of pale beam, luminous in faint glow. Dusk and dawn. Always the duo to move in motion, as evening emerges from the morn. First of creation, broad strokes of deepening excitement at all that still lay ahead.

Night and day breathed in the first of life.

***

Water upon water drenched the deep, and God had plans to give them shape, arrange their boundaries. He cast a smooth net between the aquatics that splayed an arched separation he defined as sky. Above and below, the water still flowed and ran its course as God brought brush to palate and spread a kaleidoscope of color: rose-petal pink, orange sherbet, sapphire blue. Clouds were sewn and spread across the expanse in billowy, shifting shapes. A surge of beauty from a small word.

Night and day danced to the second song of life.

***

He who carved the curve of sky now scooped from wet and drew dry ground around the water. Rolled a blanket layer across the water and stroked it smooth, appointed lines where both would meet but never merge. Land and sea to sway in rhythm at earth’s rotation.

God called it good then called for more.

Beneath the soil sprung roots that latched deep tendrils of petal and stem stretching full toward the smile of sky. Trees teemed lush with ripe fruit, pomegranate and pear, gardens heady with scent of jasmine, and soft mint dressed the land as it began to find its personality.

Night and day circled the third realm of life.

***

Now he who gave great attention to detail couldn’t leave the night full black. There was certain order he wanted to govern the seasons that would shift throughout time. He tilted the ball of blue and green and set it spinning. To lead the way, God churned gas into a giant mass and placed some of his heat inside—this was sun, to warm the world by day. For its lunar equivalent, a smaller sphere to compliment and follow close the course of earth and cover in shadow to create an ebb and flow of tide. Powder dusted the surface, a nightlight to dreams, illuminated in a mystery that was moon. Here began another pairing to turn together in unity.

Again, the call came for more. God would always stretch for best. When he sensed the evening was short of sparkle, he broke the bottle of crystal stars and arranged them in the air. Some, he even made artwork—images that would become legends, myths.

He saw how good it was.

Night and day discovered wonder in this fourth turn of life.

***

More, he encouraged his creation. There is more to be. Waters rumbled and from the deep came creatures behemoth and bountiful, miniscule and miraculous. In the sky, winged movement brushed wide through the wind. God gave instruction for the living things to multiply and send themselves farther into what was made. Squawks and spouts sprayed sound echoes, melodious in sending first refrains along airwaves. This, again, was a goodness that spread his smile along the sea and land.

Night and day laughed with the fifth movement of life.

***

Bent low to the ground, God brought about the animal kingdom. He lengthened legs and tails, fashioned fur to skin, poured liquid eyes of amber, amethyst, and silver into irises. Large and long, wide and wrinkled, God gave land as playground and released the wild ones to make home among the crags, streams, grass, and thicket of earth. Hippo and hyena, llama and lemur, all lived as neighbors well acquainted.

Night and day marveled at the sixth stretch of life.

***

As the close of creation drew near, he stepped back and assessed his work: light and dark, heaven and earth; day and night, water and sky; land and air; trees and seas and winged and swimming creatures, animals, sun, moon, and stars.

Yes, there was satisfaction in this design, in the dream he brought to life. An almost full-color canvas of the Creator I AM.

Still… he called out for more. The sequence of conception could not quite be called complete. There was yet the finishing touch, the tipping point, his defining crescendo.

***

Before, all was formed by his breath, until he wound his wonder within the dust, moved hands to clay and cupped lungs, fashioned contour of face. Tendons from the ground, limbs bent from bone. Human: masterpiece, reflective image of he who broke eternity into time, the tenderness with which he approached what he had crafted, the crown jewel of his domain.

Into his own image, he created man and woman. As if peering at his cosmic mirror and reflecting what brilliantly shone on the stretched-taut canvas of primal beginning of the heartbeat. Two as one, paired to become the face of him who has no beginning.

Awake, Adam, lungs of dusk, strong of mind and muscle.

Awake, Eve, flesh of flesh, uncurled, tender and true.

He gave them care of every creature, ground to till, food to feed their bellies. And they would roam the tufts of grass together, God with them, his presence more than mist amidst the garden air.

This was day six, and all God saw was good.

Night and day stood awestruck at this final stroke of life.

***

Night and day, sun and moon, wave, blade of grass and brush of bodies gave way to the first week, where he who released galaxies sat back satisfied at what had formed. On the seventh beat, symphonic rest. A holy christening that blessed the sabbath, set apart for renewal and remembrance.

In the beginning, God created, saw that which was good and made it great among the passion for more, ever expanding, forever dreaming.

Always, this is the way of his world.