Week XXI: Babel, Pt. 1 - The Fall

In the beginning was the word
The word was God the power within
From naught to draw the wind, the seed
To cast upon a fallowed field

The darkness, silent muted strings
Beyond the breath in chaos formed
Unmoved as yet by careful bidding
Without the cast of the word

The night and day were there divided,
Dark retreating in blackened streams
The shadows cast as effigies
For truth to burn in pits of flame

The word was God immutable
The dark defiant to the last
To name creation into being
Then cry for its unmaking

Behold the dusk's collision
The event horizon on the earth
Turning valleys into ink wells
And mountains into clouds

And lo, creation's breath arises
Sculpted clay of dust and ash
The greatest art, the word complete
But knowing not itself

And from the word sprang forth a tree
The fruit as red as a harlot's lips
The provenance of understanding
The mind, the meat, the carnal self

O that ignorance was bliss
The soul kiss of a lover's lips
The song from which, long since forgotten
Would calm the storm in mind

But the lustre of forbidden fruit
A beacon to the words of clay
Held forth as God in memory
And beckoned unto them

And with one bite the word complete
Flowed red like blood now coursing through
The veins like strings, a plucked lament
For Eden and the face of God

A mark in clay, the agony
Of choice laid bare upon their flesh
The knowledge they in trespass gained
Capitulating to the word

Come crashing from a higher plane
Come Raphael, the fruit it seems
To cut away the silver cord
And drive the lovers from the sun

Eastward from the garden then
The cherubim with swords of flame
Came forth to guard the tree within
And point towards the dawn

The bleeding breach of morning sun
Came forth to light the day of death
The fall from grace, the God unmet
The dawn of humankind