Poet of “Genesis”

September 4, 2014 The Genehouse Chronicles: “Poet of ‘Genesis”’
 
The eastern sky is slate colored above the fire of sunrise. Long strings of still, tufted clouds hang parallel, south to north. Jupiter blazes and Mercury sleeps, and there are the pearls of the Crab Nebulae on the neck of the sky and it is a perfect morning.
 
This is our natural world, unstained, balanced on a celestial tightrope. The early poet of “Genesis” sensed this, longed for this, the rich writing filled with longing. 
 
Until the poem turned dark, when Man entered stage left. The poem became prose, a newspaper ledger which chronicled murder and sordid, raw emotion. The tracks to Eden had been ripped out.
 
A thousand years ago, the Cahokia and Anasazi Indians simultaneously built earthen monuments which emulated the stars. Modern architects design skyscrapers which emulate mountains. And this misguided, well-intentioned emulation, the modernist version of it, because it lacks root vision and wisdom, has but a single need: the insertion of an intravenous tube into the body of Earth, said tube sucking out the nutrients, the chemical building blocks of all life.
 
We are left with desiccation, of landscapes, of resources, of water, of soil. And, because we are fatally flawed, first noted by the poet of “Genesis,” because we fatalistically believe we cannot return, we will suck Earth’s teat some more, down to molten fire, like a kid with a straw draining the last drops of soda from a bottle.  
 
That noise we hear, that sucking noise, that electronic noise, that shrill scream of the dispossessed, is the new human Music of Chaos. ISIS is the new brand on old product, formerly called The Crusades, The Dark Ages, Homeland Security.
 
Who did all this? Who allowed all this? 
 
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.”  
 
What did we think that meant? I heard it spoke with reverence, from all the pulpits of all the days of my childhood. But then, we are unmoved by poets and utterly moved by inane games and machines which celebrate—surprise—humans. 
 
Aren’t we clever? Aren’t we, We of the Manifest Destiny? 
 
God, forgive us. We know what we do. We do it anyway. Turns out, a lily is just a lily in a field I need, to build my new no-electric-wires, solar powered house.
 
Poet of “Genesis,” ain’t going to be an apology. You knew that when you wrote the perfect metaphor, “In the beginning.” You sensed that the universe was billions of years old and you explained it so that children could understand it. You knew that evolution was about; you sensed it long before Darwin. You wrote for the first children. You knew you were a fraction of a miracle and you wrote about astral miracles for the first children. 
 
Tragically, fatally, the children took you literally.
 
Poet of “Genesis,” you were co-opted before the ink was dry, by priests in sheep’s clothing. You got it right: God is Metaphor.  
 
The eastern sky is slate colored above the fire of sunrise. Long strings of still, tufted clouds hang parallel, south to north. Jupiter blazes and Mercury sleeps, and there are the pearls of the Crab Nebulae on the neck of the sky and it is a perfect morning.

About Eugene Jones Baldwin

I am a writer: non-fiction, fiction, journalism (Alton Telegraph), essays (The Genehouse Chronicles) and have a website: eugenebaldwin.com. I've published a couple dozen short stories and had eleven plays produced. Current projects: "Brother of the Stones" (available on Kindle), a book of short stories; "The Faithful Husband of the Rain, short stories"; "A Black Soldier's Letters Home, WWII,;" "There is No Color in Justice," a commentary on racism; "Ratkillers," a new play. I am an avocational archaeologist and I take parts of my collection of several thousand Indian artifacts (personal finds) to schools, nature centers, libraries etc. and talk about the 20,000 year history of The First people in Illinois. (See link to website) I'm also a playwright (eleven plays produced), musician, historian (authority on the Underground Railroad in Illinois, the Tuskegee Airmen) and teacher.
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