Enoch Tells the Secrets of the Sixth Day

The fifth day of course was busy, the sea 
bringing forth the fishes, monkfish and angelfish, 
the skates and rays, and squid spurting their dark ink,
and then the feathered things filling the air

screech owls and oystercatchers, the sky 
peppered with ravens and crows.  Locusts murmured 
about the nine plagues, forming swarms.  Gadflies flitted  
and woodworms fretted their trails.  

The crawling things appeared on the earth and roamed, 
nudging the grasses with snuffling noses. 
They made their way across prairies of gilded wheat, 
and sifted through the sands with cloven or unsplit feet.  

Male and female creatures coupled.  The noise 
was immense: moos and squeals, honking and trumpeting, 
the caterwauls of beasts in heat.  Nighttime fell and stars 
rowed out in their boats across the purpled firmament.

When the sixth day dawned, the time came 
to form man from the wisdom of God.  The formula
for the seven components was simple.  Flesh was made 
from the earth, clammy gray clay, sod, bole and loam.

Blood was wrung from the dewdrops which hung 
in spheres on leafblades and flower lips,   
and eyes were plucked from the sun and pushed
into the sockets like fallen embers.

Bones were built of stonemarble, flint and slate, 
and the long bones stuffed with marrow.
Man's intellect was taken from the swiftness of angels 
and gauzy clouds skimming the earth.

Veins and hair were formed from the thin bodied grasses, 
hollowed out and strung together.  The soul 
was made of God's breath blown down a strawblade 
along the lean body of the wind.

After this came the story of the rib, about which 
I longed to warn the Creator, saying:
make the woman first, let her prevent what will become 
a miserable dominion over the earth. 


 

© Jan Lee Ande