I often find poets make the best preachers. They focus on each word and every line to provide in often-succinct fashion interpretation of life and scripture. Along with the images of creation in Genesis and Psalms, I hold this version of our beginning by Vassar Miller dear to my heart.
Morning Person
Vassar Miller
God, best at making in the morning, tossed
stars and planets, singing and dancing, rolled
Saturn’s rings spinning and humming, twirled the earth
so hard it coughed and spat the moon up, brilliant
bubble floating around it for good, stretched holy
hands till birds in nervous sparks flew forth from
them and beasts – lizards, big and little, apes,
lions, elephants, dogs and cats cavorting,
tumbling over themselves, dizzy with joy when
God made us in the morning too, both man
and woman, leaving Adam no time for
sleep so nimbly was Eve bouncing out of
his side till as night came everything and
everybody, growing tired, declined, sat
down in one soft descended Hallelujah.
Whether the creation stories of Genesis or poets like Miller or James Weldon Johnson, the great ones point not just toward what God has done but what God continues to do daily. This week take Miller’s poem and perspective with you. See each day, each encounter, each dynamic moment as a work of an ever creating God.
