Another Favorite Poem - THE CREATION by James Weldon Johnson

THE CREATION

And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I’m lonely---I’ll make me a world.

As far as the eye could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.

The God smiled, And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That’s good!

Then God reached out and took the light in his hands,
And God rolled the light around in his hands
Until he made the sun:
And he set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.

Then down between the darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
God said: That’s good!

Then God himself stepped down—
And the sun was on his right hand,
And the moon was on his left;
The stars were clustered about his head,
And the earth was around his feet.
And God walked, and where he trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.

Then he stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over the edge of the world
And he spat out the seven seas---
He batted his eyes, and the lightning flashed—
He clapped his hands, and the thunders rolled—
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.

Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his fingers up to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,


And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around His shoulder.
Then God raised his arm and waved his hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And said: Bring forth! Bring forth!
And quicker than God could drop his hand,
Fishes and fowls and beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said: That’s good.

Then God walked around on all that he had made.
He looked at his sun, and he looked at his moon,
And then he looked at his little stars;
He looked on his world with all its living things,
And God said: I’m lonely still.

Then God sat down—
On the side of a hill where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he sat down;
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I’ll make me a man!

Up from the bed of the river God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river he kneeled him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;

This Great God
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Til he shaped it in his own image;
Then into it he blew the breath of life.
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.

James Weldon Johnson
God’s Trombones