JAMES WELDON JOHNSON'S
CREATION ACCOUNT
Continuing Black History Month
"The Creation"
And God
stepped out on space,
And he looked
around and said:
I'm lonely -
I'll make me a world.
And far as the eye of God could see 5
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled,
And the light broke, 10
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the 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 15
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, 20
Spangling the night with the moon and
stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And
God said: That's good! 25
The
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 under his feet. 30
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. 35
So God stepped over to the edge of the
world
And he spat out the seven seas -
He batted his eyes, and the lightnings
flashed -
He clapped his hands, and the thunders
rolled -
And the waters above the earth came down,
40
The cooling waters came down.
Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the
sky,
And the oak spread out his arms, 45
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. 50
The God raised his arm and he waved his
hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And he said: Bring forth! Bring forth!
And quicker than God could drop his hand,
Fishes and fowls 55
And
beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said: That's good! 60
Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that he had made.
He looked at his sun,
And he looked at his moon, 65
And 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 - 70
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! 75
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 80
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner
of the night,
of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his
hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby, 85
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in his own image;
Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul. 90
Amen. Amen.
(from God's Trombones,
1927)
© James Weldon Johnson
From The Heath Anthology
of
American Literature,
Volume
Two, Second
Edition,
1053-1055.
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Here's my creation account from my book, Cries .... But Silent
CREATION ACCOUNT
In the beginning
all
was God.
In
the beginning
all
else was silence,
all
else was darkness.
And
God burst
through
the dam
of
silence and darkness
with
his word,
“Let
there be light!”
And
God’s power,
and
God’s spirit
exploded
into creation.
Molten
lava,
red
rivers of fire,
huge
stones and planets
rolled
down the dark hills
of
space, down the empty
halls
of the universe,
crashing,
splashing,
noise
and sound.
Creation
had begun ,
bursting,
splattering seed
into
the empty holes
of
barren time.
“Let
there be life!”
And
the fertile egg
of
earth began.
And
in time
the
naked baby
came
forth
crawling
towards
the
Father,
standing,
falling
rising,
trying
again
and again
to
stand up to the Father.
And
gradually
it
too learned
the
words,
“Let
there be light!”
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