GENESIS CHAPTER 1 ~ 5

GENESIS

THE idea that the Book of revelation in its four parts, the Torah or Tawrat, the Psalms or Zabur, the New Testament or Injil, and finally the holy Qur'an, makes up a coherent whole, is one that has been fostered in practice by most Muslims for centuries, and forms a basic tenet of the Bektashi-Alevis. In his book What does God Demand of Humankind, the late Turkish teacher of Islam, Šinasi Koç, maintains that the differences between Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the less numerous faiths of East and West would find a common path if they adhered to the divine law found in the pages of the Bible and the Qur'an. This call to return to the common faith was the focus of his life work. The 17th-century Christian writer, Edward Elwall, in addition to wearing Turkish dress in witness of this common faith, also wrote many tracts defending the Decalogue as the foundation of a common revelation, and the universality of the one God of revelation.

The book of Genesis, the first part of this grand conversation between God and humankind, is a compilation of stories that give the fundamentals of this common revealed faith. Rather than a philosophical point of departure in the definition of God, the story begins by affirming Deity through creation. The universality of the sovereign Creator-God comes to a pinnacle in the story of Abraham and Melchizedek, both of whom, while representing different tribes, recognize the same God. Polytheistic systems fostered the worship of different, local gods as one moved from place to place. The experience of Abraham, who as a nomad worshipped one and the same God all of the time, no matter where he wandered, was a telling witness against idolatry. This is the first principle of revealed faith.

Other fundamental principles are also found in the book. The story of Cain and Abel establishes the principle of divine justice, one carried out through the story of the Flood and later episodes. Again and again the principle of prophethood as the medium of revelation appears, until finally God tells it to a heathen king in a dream in Genesis 20:7, claiming Abraham to be a prophet. The same passage establishes the practice of righteous dissimulation or taqiyya. The first woman to be a prophet appears in Genesis 16, Hagar, the mother of Ishmael. Others, such a Miriam the sister of Moses, Hanna the mother of Samuel, and Deborah in the book of Judges follow in line.

The principle of divinely appointed leadership is established throughout the book of Genesis, as the line moves from the hereditary one of Genesis 5 to the appointment of the righteous Abraham. The book of Genesis moves through twelve successions of divinely appointed leadership, establishes them as divine proof or witnesses to the world of the oneness of God, and finally, tells the story of the first occultation, the disappearance of the prophet Enoch to walk with God.

The principle of human responsibility before God, or judgement, is approached from several points of view in the story of Joseph, where the factors of God's sovereignty and foreknowledge are placed opposite human choice and responsibility. Thus, although the oneness of God is the major theme of Genesis, the basic principles of divine justice, revelation through prophets, divinely appointed leadership, and divine judgement are fully portrayed to the one who approaches the Book of revelation from the beginning.

Christians have made a great issue of the prophecy of the coming of Christ to be found in Genesis 3:15. I find this text ambiguous for such purposes. More telling is the principle of revelation through the Angel of YHWH, whose role as messenger of God is so strong that he always speaks for God in the first person, and is even in Genesis 16 and 22 as well as other passages elliptically referred to by the name YHWH as well as the Angel of YHWH, a convention that may go far to explain the strong anthropomorphism that is applied to YHWH in some texts. The personification of the Word of God is laid down in Genesis, preparing the way for the Logos of John and the Qur'anic recognition of the Messiah, a word from Allah. But this should not be construed in any sense that attributes creaturely characteristics to the Creator or denies His absolute oneness.

The Angel of YHWH appears at the binding of Isaac as well. The awareness of the anthropologist that the sacrifice of Isaac is a replay of a rite of passage with a set liturgical text after the manner of Van Gennep rather than a unique and straightforward event is perhaps my most important original exegetical contribution. The fact that it accounts for all of the factors, however, is not enough to establish its validity as a hermeneutical alternative among those who wish to maintain as many points of division as possible between faith traditions. The explanation of course allows both the Bible and the Qur’an to be correct in describing the rite for both Isaac and Ishmael.

As the bridge of faiths, Genesis arises most fully in its presentation of the loving relationship between Ishmael and Isaac and their descendants. Both sons are established in Genesis 17 as heirs of the promise of God, and both are fathers of twelve princes. The passage containing the names of the sons of Ishmael in Genesis 25:13-16, when cantillated in Hebrew, is one of the most exquisite hymns of the entire Book of Revelation.

BELOVED, that I know I am here to think,
Aware of all illusion at the brink,
And being so aware, I come to know
That You are one above, beyond the go
Of changing things, as witness to the show
Of justice You make when You steel Your Word
By prophet and divine guide to the stirred.
Your revelation of the right in these
Three paths as one in treasured trinities
Of law and prophecy and word made flesh
Come to my soul today and now make fresh
My coming to Your face in judgement and
Extinction of illusion's will and hand
To find Your paradise on silver sand.

WEEK ONE GENESIS 1

Speak out, O my Beloved, of Your creation,
How You made all things that exist and yet
Existent as You are, You have no nation
But are as One apart from all things met.
Speak out, O my Beloved, of light and air,
Of all the signs and wonders that appear
In earth and sea and sky and everywhere
Fowl flutter, cattle wander without fear.
Speak out, O my Beloved, command and blessing
To fill the earth and have dominion in
The things to eat, if they are seeds, I'm guessing,
They may be fruit, grain or nuts without sin.
Speak out, O my Beloved, and at Your speaking
Find me here always answering and seeking.

1 In starting, He created, God
Ælohim made the skies and sod.
2 The earth was vain and formless plain,
(Though dark things over the deep plod,)

And a great wind hovered in pain
Of birth above the waters’ bane.
3 Said Ælohim, "Let there be light"
And there was light on earth to reign.

4 Saw Ælohim the light was right,
Divided Ælohim on sight
The light from darkness in its sway.
5 Called Ælohim light day and night

He called the darkness. So that way
Evening and morning were first day.

There are some who still hope that they can find
A date for heaven and earth among the blind.
Some count to six millennia and say
That time stood still before Your word in sway.
Some count four billion years and still count more
Back from the rushing light years in their store
And know that bangs cannot be heard without
The ether aired to carry up a shout.
Beloved, the mind of man and woman too
Is curious to know when what You do
Is given time and place among the great.
It is a common human sort of fate.
So six thousand or four billion come late,
Both raise in me derision for the state.

With act of Your creation You unfold
Philosophy among the ones You scold.
The universe before the human eye
Implies both things determined on the sly
And freedom from the press of doubt and why.
By making human brain to work this way
You slip in inconsistency for play:
We must retain determination’s bill
As well as freedom on the earthly hill.
The revenuer always seeks the still.
Umbrella of Your sovereignty includes
The free will of some acts the heart extrudes.
Beloved, determine now Your love for me
And I shall still pretend that I am free.

That source of all the universe displayed
In time without time, space unspaced betrayed,
May have been like a great balloon to pop
And so expands until it comes to stop.
The universe is flying still about
In rubber bits and pieces in a flout,
But once the thrust is gone, the pieces drop
And lie upon a crystal floor to mop.
Beloved, get out a broom to sweep away
The stars and star-stuffs dropping on Your hay.
The whirling and the swirling have their day,
But rest at last in non-existent sway
Is like to make an unheard-of recall
Of every turning sun and planet’s ball.

If all the stuff You poured out from the fount
At speeds incredible in vale or mount
Keeps going outward from the central core,
I’d like to know what keeps them on the shore.
Direction of propulsion seems to me
To indicate a certain gravity
At the place of big bang’s one sorcery.
I may mistake both grail of history
And physics with my lack of property.
But if there’s no attraction in that face
From which all things pour out in crumpled race,
Then there can be no destination’s place.
I should have studied physics instead of
Theologies for naught in sacred love.

Beloved, You made the worlds and every sun
For one purpose, I trow, since I’ve begun.
I do admit my powers of comprehension
Are not too great in eternal suspension,
But still I speculate about Your smile.
It’s hardly done with any sort of guile,
So try to forgive me my extra mile.
It’s gratefulness You sought in everything
You made to spin about and made to sing.
A grateful heart suffices in the sting
Of law and judgement set forth on the wing.
So as I expand here diminished by
The years of days that I remain to vie,
I thank You for creating on the sly.

Though skies and plains retain a certain guile,
At least before the Trojans in their stile,
They have no hate within their bosoms set,
And no one hates them here before they’re met.
Hate is no thing created in the blue,
It is no thing that has come out from You,
Beloved, but is the product of the view
That You’re reflected in the human heart,
As though a thing that each one sets apart.
I know that I am god by that light shared
And so assume that anyone else bared
Competes with my uniqueness and must go
Into destruction before my own glow.
Half blindness is the starting of the show.

If You’re a treasure to be found at last
Among the universes in the blast,
After millennia’s debris outcast,
Then what of the time before the half-mast?
I count to ten or hundred and I call
Out that I’m coming after You and all,
And You pretend to hide and wink and peek
At all the boys and girls out on the seek.
Before the game, what did You then desire?
Were You for untold years upon the pyre
Of longing, longing for the human heart
Not yet displayed at all by divine art?
Beloved, love in Your own time and tell me
No hint of Your intent apostasy.

If You planned from infinities of time
What You would come to bang out in both rhyme
And rhythms rippling through unthwarted space,
You must have been elated by the face
That You created after all the while.
It must have caused You to break out a smile.
If You took such infinities to shake
Out blueprints of the things You’d like to make,
I wonder that the execution’s stake
Should be so short and sudden in the wake.
Beloved, if You’re elated, then so be,
And in elation look or not on me.

In wiser myths of wiser men times past
They saw the heavens and earth mated to cast
Between them all the love and light that stays
In fleeting glimpses on the earthly ways.
The principle of pairing in creation
Is not just sexual sort of elation,
But is the central fact of its existence.
The pairing is a thing of some insistence.
Only You who create all things are one,
And only You exist as one when done.
The set of the Creator contains just
One alone, while the cosmic sort of dust
Is multiplied and multiplied as must
Until the end of all things come to rust.

Beloved, I beg Your pardon that I make
So many sonnets on the simple take
Of the first verse You had inscribed to be
Beginning of the revelation’s spree.
The fact is, though I contemplate the whole
Of Bible and Qur’an as greater goal,
I simply turn and return to the start
Where I fail comprehending divine part.
I thought I understood first reading of
The books You sent down to men in Your love,
But with rereading, find my knowing there
Was hardly a beginning of the share.
I ponder all my life the first verse shown,
And then just the dot in the beth unknown.

There is no lack of rhymes to take this word
Among the English terms that have occurred
Since Oxford dictionary came and stirred
Imagination of the continent.
There are infinities that can be meant.
I may not weary You, Beloved, at all.
I may not become tired here in my stall.
But if I write a dozen more in call
Of sonnets on the first verse of Your book,
I’ll never finish all the things in crook
To the end of the holy Qur’an’s nook.
Besides, such slating of infinities
Is like to turn my reader on his knees
To beg of me alone Your own mercies.

All things created are weighted as signs
Of Your existence and of Your designs.
They speak in multiplicity to say
That You alone are One and every day.
The holy Qur’an makes appeal to those
Created things as witnesses in rows,
And David in his Psalms is on his toes
To show that heaven and earth repeat along
The burden of creation’s light in song.
The weight of witness still speaks to my heart
That moves along on earth by donkey-cart,
And tells the light years on my path that You
Are near and far, inside and out of view.
The weighted witness remains here my cue.

When and where were You waiting before You
Produced the universe to heavenly view?
You had and have no whenness to wait here,
And You retain no whereness to appear.
All times and places may be Your abode,
But all are too scant for You and Your load.
Wait if You will or must, but still I trust
That words of revelation in the dust
Are mighty flighty in a sugared crust.
I wait for inspiration from the crowd
Of witnesses that You have once allowed,
And find too much to sing upon my heart.
Your witnessing was my waiting for dart
In my breast to create my love to start.

The basis of both time and space You made
In the six of directions in parade,
And counted out the pairs of skies and earth
To find their dearth and worth and birth and mirth.
The Finns are brighter far in tongue and word:
They have the eight directions that unstirred
In other languages are only four.
They have two extra insights at the door.
Beloved, as You are one in absolute,
And of all things Creator at the root,
All things are pairs and multiplicities
Expanding through the universe in frieze.
I turn from the outgoing back to find
The oneness of Your own and unique kind.

I turn from heaven and seeking to the earth
To find beneath my foot one thing of worth.
I find You, O Beloved, in all the Gates
Wherein the lovely hidden Treasure waits:
The Gate of Earth, one without form and deep,
Reality, where soul's distinctions sleep,
I find You in the Gate of waters where
There is no light, but Your awareness bare,
I find You in the Gate of air, in law
That touches the prostrated soul with awe.
In earth and water, wind and darkness sought
You are the Treasure that cannot be bought,
The Treasure of Tehowm, the depth of fire,
In all the Gates, Beloved, my One desire.

Let me not worship light, for now I see
That light is just a word that says let be.
Indeed it is a thing created so
That in the everlasting night might glow
That word resounding from the mouth of God.
Let there be light, a path where angels trod,
And being so, let light be trodden down.
Created first, let this be light's renown.
Created glory is but darkness when
The Uncreated One appears to men.
Illumination of the human heart
Reveals an empty temple without art.
But even darkness may suffice to show
That You, Beloved, are there though light may go.

Beloved, I fear to hear that You see light
For in my seeing light is only night.
By light I see the other, not the right,
The light is but the medium of my sight.
But You have need of nothing, so You know,
Perceive directly both the yes and no.
You only may divide the light and dark,
Distinguish good and evil in the park.
Beloved, You see the light, and what You see
Is good, if good, Beloved, look not on me.
There is none Good, none Good at all but One,
Look not, look not, Beloved, on me undone,
And let not me be Good, but You alone
Who are not made of blood and flesh and bone.

Beloved, You cantillate the name of Day,
But I can never hear a word You say.
Again Your lovely voice lifts to recite
The words of darkness and there is the Night.
I see the Day, the glories of its birth
That go from topaz, emerald, then in worth
To ruby, last to diamond, then to dusk.
I smell Night's perfumes and I smell its musk.
But I hear nothing of your diurnal song.
Speak, sing, Beloved, to tell me I've no wrong!
I see the Day and smell the Night but hear
No whisper of divine upon my ear.
It is not mine to hear Your words out-flung
Who am the whispered word upon Your tongue.

6 Said Ælohim, "Let be expanse
Of beaten metal in the dance
Between the waters to divide
The waters from waters’ advance.

7 Made Ælohim expanse to ride
Dividing waters that may glide
Beneath the expanse from those that
Stand there above. It came in pride.

8 Called Ælohim the expanse flat
The pair of skies where they are at.
Then evening came and morning vied
To make the second day beside.

The second day You spoke the firmament
Into existence, with Your word and scent,
Dividing thus the gate of waters there
Above the gates of earth and fire and air.
Yet when I look into the sky, behold,
There is no stretch of beaten metal cold
Against stupendous reaches into space.
I find no firmament in time or place.
And still I raise my eyes from earth to sky,
Between awareness and reality,
And look in awe, not on a firmament,
But on the bare, uncircumscribed ascent.
Nothing divides the heaven and earth in time
Except the tinkling hammers and their rhyme.

9 Said Ælohim, "Be gathered there
The waters under the skies’ share
To one place, and so let appear
The dry land." It was so and fair.

10 Called Ælohim dry land earth clear.
The gathering of the waters' here
He called seas. Ælohim then saw
That it was good and it was dear.

11 Said Ælohim, "Let earth updraw
Grass, herb seeding seed without flaw,
The fruit tree making fruit in kind,
Its seed in itself on earth’s maw.

And so it came to be outlined.
12 And earth sprouted the grass refined,
The herb seeding seed to its mate,
And tree making fruit to its kind.

Saw Ælohim it was good rate.
13 So evening and morn were not late
To bring the third day and instate,
To bring the third day and instate.

The gates of earth and water at Your word
Appeared before my heart and my soul stirred
At Your call, my Beloved, to enter in.
I try it with a toe instead of fin
And brace myself for some regeneration
Or at the least uplifting jubilation.
This miqwe is too cold I say aloud,
And try to hide myself amidst the crowd.
Ablutions, baptisms are for the mind
Or body, rather, literally inclined.
My spirit is a higher class and one
Imbued with spirituality hard won.
Dive in, I find this is no dunking pool,
But seas of love for every swimming fool.

I step upon the earth with dripping hair
And see it sprouting green leaves everywhere
At Your command, Beloved, and at Your ease.
It brings forth grass and herb and fruitful trees.
The gate of air I need at every breath.
I plunge into the water, that small death
Does not at all quench any of my fire.
But only when I step into the mire
And feel the scratch of prickle on my sole
Do I at last enter the chambered goal.
Instead of barren rocky shore and cloud
I find the luscious fruit and table bowed
And banquet set for One reality,
I join with You and You, Beloved, with Me.

14 Said Ælohim, “Let there be lights
In the expanse of heaven, from nights
Divide the day, and let them be
For signs, seasons, days and years’ heights.

15 And let them be for lights and free
In the expanse of sky to see,
In the expanse of heaven to set
Light on the earth bright in degree.”

16 Made Ælohim two great lights met:
The greater light to rule day yet,
The lesser light to dominate
Over the night, and stars in net.

17 Gave Ælohim them in the state
Of the expanse of skies by rate
To light the earth 18 and rule the day,
And manage the night too in freight,

And separate light from the sway
Of darkness, saw Ælohim play
For good. 19 Came evening and the ray
Of morning to make the fourth day.

Beloved, You give from day to day the lights
Upon the skies to rule the days and nights.
By night and day I look to see their signs
For good or ill, for what their glow divines.
I see them measure off my days and years,
Their regular ascents to calm my fears.
But fourth day of creation knows no feast,
No new moon nor a Sabbath at the least.
The only festival appointed must
Be that tryst secretly in wine and crust
I have with You, Belovèd, day by day,
As greater, lesser lights go on their way,
Appointments momentarily below
The hundred thousand stars that come and go.

20 Said Ælohim, "Let waters swarm
Abundance of living, not warm,
And let birds fly above the earth
Over skies' expanse without harm."

21 Created Ælohim for worth
Sea creatures and all that in berth
Of waters swarmed to their own kind,
And every bird in the sky’s girth

According to its wing designed.
Saw Ælohim good and refined.
22 And Ælohim blessed them, and said
"Be fruitful, multiply, and mind,

Fill waters in the seas, be led
Birds on earth to increase well-fed.”
23 So evening and the morning sped
To set forth the fifth day instead.

Out of the gathered waters of the deep,
The dyeing vat, miqwe, baptismal font,
Above the great wind's sighing and its sweep,
You conjure up, ethereal and gaunt,
The living nafs, the self, that fleeting fish
That turns from wraith to silver with one wish
And disappears, a droplet in the vast
And mobile sea. If I take fly and cast,
It may take all my three-score years and ten
To find and catch that silver fish again.
I shall not wait upon the shore, shall not!
I care not whether silver fish are caught.
Instead I plunge into that rising foam,
And quickly pass into eternal home.

24 Said Ælohim, "Let earth produce
The living creature to its use:
The cattle and the creeping thing,
Beast of the earth in its kind’s truce.”

25 Made Ælohim the beastly thing
According to its kind to sing,
The cattle in its sort and all
That creeps on earth in kind and ring.

Saw Ælohim the good in all.
26 Said Ælohim, "Let’s now install
Man in our image, by our plan,
And let them have the rule in call

Upon the fish of the sea’s span,
And over birds of heaven’s ban,
The cattle upon all the earth,
And creepers on earth to a man.”

27 Created Ælohim in berth
Of His image the man of worth,
Into the great image made him,
Male and female made them in girth.

28 Blessed them, did Ælohim in hymn,
And said Ælohim to them grim,
So multiply, fill the earth’s ring
And live throughout its breadth and rim,

Rule over fish that the seas fling,
Birds of the air and birds that sing,
And over every living beast
That moves on earth by foot or wing."

29 Said Ælohim "See, now increased
To you be every herb released
With seeds on face of all the ground,
And every tree with fruit at least,

For you it shall be your food found.
30 "To every earthly beast around,
To every bird of heaven, to each
Live creeping thing upon the ground,

I put green herbs within their reach.”
31 Saw Ælohim that all was peach
That He’d made. So eve and morn stay,
Establishing here the sixth day.

Beloved, You blessed the birds and fishes
And made them souls upon their wishes,
But when it came to creeping things
You seem to have some questionings.
At least You do not bless the cattle
Nor wild beasts going out to battle.
Since these are closer, bone and claw,
To humans, and they stand in awe
Of human powers, one might think
They too deserve, a missing link,
To enter in the books of those
You set apart, and marked and chose.
Treat me, Beloved, I truly wish,
Not like the cattle, but the fish.

Your image is a canvas vaster than
What sea and sky and earth forever can.
Yet Your self-portrait in perfection lies
Within the atom's small peripheries.
To each wrought figure either small or vast
You have his own dominion wisely cast.
Each mite within Your image has been crowned
And granted each its nourishment and bound.
Your sovereignty of sovereigns knows no press,
While I'm in Your creation, free to guess.
Though I myself am not Your image whole
As some would trust whose faith has greater goal,
I glory in the honour of the part
I have in Your creation's noble art.

The heavens in pairs and earth in slack
Begin no multiplying’s lack.
Formless and void, darkness on deep,
The fatal wind where waters leap,
Waters above and those below,
The light and dark, eve and morn’s glow,
The day and night, the sun and moon,
The fish and bird, and just as soon
The beast and humankind appear
In Ali and Fatimah’s fear,
Till yin-yang, ruh-nafs, hope and love
Join in the one all things above.
Beloved, the you and I remain
Forever Your treasure and gain.

Beloved, this is the first of Your commands,
A double statute that perhaps still stands.
Although You set the bounds of reproduction
As what the earth is able in construction
Of living space and eating, You impose
The duty first of all since men arose
And women too, to live and propagate.
One half of all required in every state
Remains to fill this first command, obey
The human urge to make, produce, and play.
Consumption and production are the whole
These words imply, to make and take the goal.
Belovèd, I fulfil Your will devoutly
By merely breathing inwardly and outly.

Beloved, I jump to no conclusions when
I hear You give dominion now to men
And women as the second of commands.
I do not think that makes us kings of lands
Or even animals. Dominion's but
The word you use when You would tell us what
We ought to eat, and what the others choose.
Dominion's nothing more, a right to lose,
Than eating seeds and such instead of greens.
The one that eats more than corn, squash and beans
Has lost dominion, eating leaf and root.
Dominion's not a sceptre, crown and suit.
Let me, Belovèd, crack the sacred nut,
Divide the grape and sit beneath Your hut.

GENESIS 2

1 So skies and earth, without delay,
Were finished. 2 On the seventh day
Ælohim ended all His work.
Observed the Sabbath not to stray

The seventh day, and without shirk
From what He'd done. 3 Then came to lurk
Ælohim, blessed the seventh day
And made it holy for a perk.

He made it holy in its way
Because He observed Sabbath day
From all the work that He had done,
Ælohim created and won.

Beloved, the sixth day You blessed man and beast,
And gave them nourishment from great to least,
The seventh day You stepped upon the throne
To reign Creator-God, and reign alone.
As this blessed day affirms Your sovereignty
Week after week let me too seek to be
The sign to all that You are God alone.
Submerge this self caught up in flesh and bone
Into Your Self, to praise Your love and power,
Nor as the Sabbath for a day, an hour,
A moment be enough to satisfy
My humble wish to praise and magnify.
Let me not turn from sixth day prayer to seek
My tasks, but Your remembrance of the week.

When in Your wisdom You had laid
Foundations of the earth,
In pause You saw what You had made,
And then proclaimed its worth.

When in Your power You set abroad
The flaming arch of heaven,
You looked up from the budding sod
And blessed the fruit of seven.

For on that first Sabbath of rest
You saw the good in all.
Who brought forth right and reaped the best,
Taught us to hear Your call.

So on this day as I survey
In pause my week again,
Let me see good in my own way
And in my fellowmen.

And may the Sabbath blessing rise
This Sabbath as of old,
And recreating grace devise
To turn my dross to gold.

4 These are the stories of the skies
And of the earth, what they comprise,
In the day YHWH [Huu or Jah] Ælohim made
The earth and heavens in surprise.

5 And every plant of the field’s shade
Before it was in the earth stayed,
And every wild herb of the field
Before it grew up in parade,

For YHWH Ælohim did not yield
Yet rain on earth, no man to wield
The tool of labour in the ground.
6 But mist went up from earth unsealed

To irrigate the whole earth round.
7 And YHWH Ælohim formed in bound
The human Adam from earth’s dust
And breathed into his nostrils sound,

He breathed Adam life’s breath in crust
To be a living soul in trust.

A living being, nafs it's called in speech
Heard round the hearth and gallows, and by each
Lone dervish in his solitary dance
With death. The living dead too wish to prance
About the dust and breath. But You who form
A man or woman merely from a storm
Of desert dirt and wind make miracles
From less than nothingness. Dust disannuls
In no way breath of life and both together
Despoil and recreate in every weather
The nafs. Poor soul, whose breath is in the nostril
And not the cosmic universe, is wastrel
That's worth the void upon whose fecund screen
Is played the universe, the nafs, the scene.

8 Then planted YHWH Ælohim there
A Pleasure garden, Eden fair,
And there He put Adam to stand
That He’d formed for his earthly share.

9 Made grow YHWH Ælohim from land
Each tree pleasant to sight and planned
Good food, and the tree of life in
The middle of the garden grand,

And tree of knowing how to win
Both good and evil in the bin.

Ah, tree of life and life immortal I
Shall have if only, even with a sigh,
I let go hope of knowing right and wrong
For my own self. Instead I sing the song
Caught from Your lips, Beloved, instead I dance
To Your tunes sung not only to enhance
Creation but to make it real or all
But real. Instead I listen for Your call.
It is not knowledge You prohibit but
Desire to define right and wrong and what
Should be and what should not be on the earth.
You only, my Beloved, know what is worth
A sense of justice. Right and wrong demand
The knowledge of all things, and out of hand.

10 A river now went out of Pleasure
To water Eden without measure,
And from the place divided out,
Became four heads of water’s treasure.

11 Name of the one is Pishon stout,
It goes round all the land about
Of Havilah, in which place lies
Gold. 12 And gold of that land no doubt

Is good. There is gum or pearls’ guise
And onyx stone. 13 And name in prize
Of the second river’s Gihon,
Surrounds all land of Cush (Ethiopia) in size.
[possibly pearls or the gum of the Borassus flabelliformis tree or Commifora africana]

14 Hiddekel [Tigris] is the third to drone,
A river before gladness won.[or east of Assyria]
The fourth river is called Euphrates
(I saw it in the nineteen-eighties).

Beloved, the four gates that four rivers make
Delight my soul bent to the torture stake,
A whirl upon the slaughtering ground and then
I find the gold provided for all men.
Another whirl and fragrant pitch and stone
Create a temple on the earth alone.
For love I fly to Cush and whirling there
I turn to Hiddekel and eastward stare
Until Euphrates comes in sight and with
It I climb castle walls beset with myth
Until I reach the throne at last that seems
An empty one from all the gates of dreams,
And find it filled with all reality
More than I hear and more than I can see.

15 Then YHWH Ælohim took the man
And put him in the Pleasure gan
To dress and keep it as he can.

They ask me, my Belovèd, what I am
And what I do for my career or scam,
And when I say that I am Truth alone
They look at me to say I can't atone.
I am would be enough I trow for me
Since I am is enough simplicity
For Your estate. But no, I must have here
Profession, title, salary, career,
Or join the loony bin. The state I'm in
I'm glad You put me here and it's no sin
To say I am a farmer, tending, keeping
The Pleasure garden for the one who's weeping.
The only valid work there seems to be
Is keeping vine and flower and tending tree.

16 And YHWH Ælohim gave command
To Adam saying "On each hand
Of every tree set in the garden
You may eat freely without warden
17 "But from the tree of knowledge good
And knowledge evil know you should
Not eat, for in the day you try of it
You shall indeed and surely die of it."

You give, Beloved, the right to eat the fruit
Of every good tree and sweet thing to boot,
You give the pleasure and the obligation
Of having children to fill up the nation.
Yet you retain one thing for You alone,
A thing that irritates man to the bone.
You would not let us know the wrong from right
For our own selves, or give us clearer sight
To make a verdict just and good about
The neighbour's actions when he fights it out.
Instead You make the human heart rely
On You alone for what, no matter why.
You only know what's right and wrong for us
No matter how we try and stew and fuss.

18 And YHWH Ælohim said "It's not
Good that the man should be alone,
I will make him a helper taught
And comparable to him full-grown."
19 Out of the ground YHWH Ælohim
Formed every wild beast of esteem,
And every bird that flies the air
And brought them all to Adam where
He might see what he would call them.
And in that divine stratagem
What Adam called each living creature
Became its name and a fixed feature.
20 So Adam gave names to all cattle,
To birds in air and each wild beast,
But Adam found he'd lost the battle
Without a helper, one at least
Comparable to him increased.

Of all the beasts who help, none there was found
Who was compared to him brought from the ground.
And after every name and suit was set
There still was not a soul whose fancy met
The namer's clue. The common origin
Was not enough to brighten Adam's chin.
The ecstasy of mating in one being
Began to taste flat when they kept on seeing
The animals go two by two together
To mate on rare occasion in good weather.
Let's see if You will answer our one prayer
And separate our being with clean air,
So that we may spend lives in longing, longing
For that reed-bed to which the pipe's belonging.

21 And YHWH Ælohim caused a deep
Trance to fall on Adam, and sleep.
He took one of his sides and closed
The flesh up where it was exposed.
22 Then the side which YHWH Ælohim
Had taken from the man in dream
He made into a woman, and
He brought her to the man first-hand.
23 And Adam said "This is now bone
Of my bones, I am not alone,
And flesh of my flesh, she shall be
Called woman, because truly she
Was taken out of man." 24 Therefore
A man shall leave his father and
His mother and join up once more
With his wife, and they shall give hand
And become one flesh. 25 And they were
Both naked, man and wife, confer
Without shame or to be demur.
[Naked, a play on words with "cunning" and "wise" in the following chapter].

The trance of revelation brings the knowing
That face to face is needed for the showing
That You, Beloved, are never far from here.
From every side I look, the he and she
Look back from mirrors always being me
And look back always without hurt or fear.
The trance of revelation that first brought
The happiness in otherness I sought
May yet bring out illusions in my sight,
But this first moment is a blessed night.
The wedding chemical still blurs my eyes
To know no difference twixt nude and wise.
Go on to know or then turn back to be
One with Creator and eternity.

GENESIS 3

1 But the serpent, watcher, magician,
Was more cunning and for sedition,
Cunning, wise, not more naked than
Any wild beast YHWH Ælohim
Had made. He said to the woman
"Has Ælohim said what you dream
'You shall not eat of every tree
That's in the garden'?" So then she,
The woman said to the serpent
"We may eat fruit the trees present
Within the garden, but the fruit
Of that tree, which you may dispute,
Is in the middle of the garden
Ælohim said, begging your pardon,
'You shall not eat nor even touch of it,
Or you will die,' and that's as much of it."
4 The watcher said to the woman,
"You will not surely die. 5 "The ban
Is that Ælohim knows the day
You eat from it, then your eyes may
Be opened and you will be like
Exalted ones, judges who strike
A pose of knowing all things better,
Both good and evil to the letter."

I have not eaten of the bidden fruit
Nor blackened hand in any sinful suit,
Yet I know very well both right and wrong
Whose teeth in human hide continue strong
Wherever interest and self-interest grow.
Just ask me, my Beloved, see if I know.
No serpent-watcher hands me luscious things,
Yet I do eat as well as queens and kings,
At least I munch the quartered grape and seed
And with the nut, I have all that I need.
And knowing right from wrong by revelation,
I guess I'm ripe for every allegation.
I die, but You, Beloved, live on and on.
So may I live in Your eternal dawn.

6 So when the woman saw that tree
Was good for food, and pleasantly
Appealing to the wondering eyes,
A tree desired to make one wise,
A tree like Muhammad, desired,
She took the fruit and ate, inspired.
She also gave her husband who
Was with her, and he ate it too.
7 Then opened were the eyes of both,
They knew their nakedness, by troth,
As opposed to their being wise,
And sewed fig leaves about their thighs.
8 And then they heard the thunder sounding,
The voice of YHWH Ælohim bounding
Throughout the garden at the breath
Of day, at evening. Fearing death,
Both man and wife hid from the coming
Of YHWH Ælohim, both succumbing
To fears of Pleasure garden's breeze
As the Lord walked among the trees.

Into the garden where I hear Your voice,
Let me not hide myself, but make my choice
To come into the gallows, give my life,
And sacrifice myself, gift without strife,
That Self may be the only One I know.
I come into the Pleasure grounds where grow
The trees of knowledge and of life with fruit
For all, but I prefer to taste the soot
Of sacrifice, let others have the gain.
I wait within the garden for the rain.
The joyous thunder of Your song reveals
Creation's purity and dancing reels,
And as I wait I hear Your voice come near,
And I stand trembling, waiting without fear.

9 Then YHWH Ælohim called the man,
And sang his loved name as he ran,
"Adam, Adam, where are you, man?"

If every man is Adam, You call me,
Beloved, and search through valley, bush and tree.
Find me here where I am and never leave,
I answer Your call and I pluck Your sleeve,
Turn now, Beloved, and show Your divine face
To everyone who waits in time and place.
Ah when Your face appears, I disappear,
And though I hide from You, it's not from fear,
But only since by searching can be found
Your one face only from the stars to ground.
When You call me, I only start to be,
And when You look again, You find not me
But You alone who are the all in all.
And so I answer, though You call and call.

10 And he said "I heard Your voice in
The garden, and I feared my sin
Since I was naked, so I hid."
11 And He said "Who has raised the lid
Revealing you were naked, did
You eat from that tree that I told
You not to eat from, were you bold?
12 Then the man said "The woman whom
You gave to be with me, made room
For me beside her at the tree
And gave me fruit to eat for free."

Beloved, no man can lie to You, no fear!
The bald and simple truth must just appear
When You ask questions and demand our fate.
You ask, and no one's answer can be late.
No plan nor thought nor any fond excuse
Is there to shift the blame, is any use.
So rare is simple truth I barely can
See that in these expressions of the man.
He merely states the woman gave the fruit.
He casts no blame, he does not aim the boot.
Ah my Beloved, how clearly You decide
To turn from truth to truth and yet not slide!
Create in me the truth alone and speak
Without a hidden motive in my cheek.

13 And YHWH Ælohim said to her,
The woman, "What did you incur?"
The woman said "The watcher came
Deceived me saying wise for shame
Of nakedness. I ate, his blame."

Deceived! You gallantly accept the woman's word.
Leave not my sinful actions undeterred!
What courage to revolt if I can blame
The passing serpent trickster for my shame!
Ah, truth takes precedence to policy.
The fact was there was trickster in the tree.
Deceived by plays on words, a naked room
Instead of insight into fruit and bloom,
And now my eyes, unveiled and open, show
Me neither wisdom nor new life. I go
In search of love instead, since knowledge flies
And life is dead. Now greater hopes arise,
That neither know nor live, but find in You,
Beloved, the Knowing, Living, and the True.

14 Then YHWH Ælohim turned His gaze
Upon the serpent, read his ways,
"Because you have done this, you are
Cursed more than cattle, more by far
Than wild beast of the field, and so
Upon your belly you shall go
And eat the dust of all your life.
15 And I'll put enmity and strife
Between you and the woman, and
Between your offspring and the hand
Of her offspring, and he shall bruise
Your head, and you his heel, you lose."

Belovèd, which of Eve's sons had the wit
To bruise the serpent's head, whose heel was hit
By that sharp fang that fascinated Eve
And Adam? As I read, I don't believe
I find that story there for Abel, Cain
Or Seth. The mortal dust of all has lain
In quiet in the tomb for centuries,
(No resurrections enter in here, please!)
While no one's heel is bruised and no head aches.
And yet Your words were written for our sakes.
The lovely Hebrew syllables require
No meaning to set heart with love on fire.
I still look round for injured heel and head
With body watered and my soul well-fed.

16 And to the woman He said "I
Will greatly multiply your cry,
And your conception will bring sorrow,
Your children will give pain tomorrow,
Your passion for your husband will
Give comfort for your children's ill.

With every choice there comes a divine grace.
The woman chose the fruit and its disgrace
To know that You, Beloved, would intervene
To tell her future and what might have been.
The grace was just to know before the fact
That brother against brother in vile act
Would seal the fate of both, the one to die
To life, the other one to live to die. That's why
Her great desire turned back to the one man
Whose impregnation started the wild plan.
No other comfort could assuage the pain
Born from her sons, she suffered sun and rain.
Is it a grace indeed, Beloved, to know
The future tragedy? I don't think so.

17 To Adam He said "Because you
Have followed your wife's voice to do
The wrong thing and eat from the tree
Of which I told you 'Let it be
And do not eat,' Cursed is the ground
For your sake, and in toil is found
Your bread as long as you shall live.
18 Both thorns and thistles it shall give
Forth for you, like a fugitive
You shall eat the wild herb of field,
Like animals, the green leaf's yield.

My lost dominion's that I eat the herb.
My salad plate will whet but never curb
My vulture's appetite. With my wings clipped
I've plucked bud leaf of thistle and I've sipped
Its nectar till it seemed too sweet for more.
My punishment is grace, and grace in store.
Beloved, curse me the ground again and give
The purple thistle and it's fruit to live,
And I shall toil my days and nights of life,
Relinquishing no peace and love for strife.
Though seed and fruit and leaf remain my meat,
The taste of these is neither good nor sweet
Compared to fasting in Your loving pleasure.
I lose dominion, but find You, my treasure.

19 "With face in sweat you shall eat bread
Until back to the earth you're led,
For out of the earth you were taken,
And made of earthly dust forsaken,
And to that dust you shall return,
The humble dust you shall not spurn."

Return to dust, my Love? Then let it be
That dust at first from which You fashioned me.
My dust is dear because it felt Your hand,
Received Your breath and gained the power to stand.
Your hand and breath could consecrate my life.
Your hand and breath may cut me like a knife,
But still there is no loss to self and soul.
Let dust and dust alone be my life's goal.
The hand that fashioned me must still remain.
Return to dust can only be my gain,
As breath that once went out returns at last
Into that home where my Beloved is fast
And bound to me forever and for good.
Let dust return and be as dusty would.

20 And Adam called his wife Eve , mother
Of every living sister, brother.

The mother of all living, that may be,
The mother of myself, my ancestry,
And yet the formula does not quite stand.
She is herself alive and even manned
By one whose mother she is not, so three
Of living are not sons or daughters, she
Her husband and her Maker, You, Beloved.
The Scripture stands embarrassed and ungloved.
Some read the sacred word to find the print
That's inconsistent with their dare and dint.
Some read the sacred word to justify
The things they do and find the reasons why
The other man is wrong. Some read alone
To find the cross-starred meat and chew the bone.

21 Also for Adam and his wife,
YHWH Ælohim made them for life
Skin belts and clothed them, that is why
We still wear clothing, by the by.

I am too wise and full from eating fat
To go out naked in the place I'm at.
In gratitude, Beloved, I take the belt
Of skin You give to hide the shame I've felt
At my implacable disorientation.
I stand in top-hat palteau on the station
To see if any train will dare arrive
To take me back to Paradise alive.
It's only when I take my eye from skin
And cease to worry at my rate of sin
That I find rather truth both out and in.
I close my ear to worship and its din
To hear Your still small voice and see Your light
Light up the dark caves of my heart and sight.

22 Then YHWH Ælohim said "Indeed,
The man's become like one of us,
To know good and to have no need
For one to show the evil muss.
And now, lest he put out his hand
And take also from the fruit stand,
The tree of life, and eat, and live
Forever," 23 Therefore to misgive
YHWH Ælohim sent him down out
Of Pleasure garden round about
To till the ground he had come from.
24 So He drove out the man, in sum,
And He placed cherubim in front
Of Pleasure there to bear the brunt
With flaming sword turned every way
To guard the path to tree of life
With subtle argument of knife.

Guard not the way to living trees from me,
Beloved, I seek not leaf, nor fruit, nor tree.
I do not turn to where the bright sword swings
Nor beat toward heaven with my impatient wings.
I'm satisfied with earth and with it's gate.
I let the guardian angel stand and wait.
I do not want to live forever there
Where shining angels stand to make the air
Ring with the wealth of universe and gold.
I covet rather daily growing old
And dying on Your breast, self turned to You,
Self one forever in Belovèd's true
Self. And so let me die today and now
And live in You alone. For that I bow.

GENESIS 4

1 Now Adam lay with his wife Eve
And that's how Eve came to conceive
And gave birth first to Cain, and said
"I have acquired a man from YHWH."
2 Then she gave birth again, as led,
This time his brother Abel, who
Was keeper of the sheep, but Cain
Was tiller of the earth's domain.

Let me give reasons here and now for better
Why Cain's the man to choose, the true go-getter.
He was the first born and no doubt his mother
Thought Abel was the one would kill his brother.
He did not leave apprenticeship that You,
Beloved, appointed for all men to do,
To follow sheep. No, he remained a farmer,
And what is more to place upon his armour,
It seems he was a vegetarian,
A pacifist not to harm any man.
I guess You too were taken in by him.
You spoke to Cain, while You and cherubim
Said not a word of warning to poor Abel.
The prophet is not always the best label.

3 As time went on it came about
When Cain had brought an offering out
To YHWH made of fruit of the ground,
4 That Abel brought one good and sound,
Firstborn of flock, and of their fat.
YHWH had respect for Abel that
Brought his offering, 5 but He had none
For Cain when his offering was done.
So Cain was very angry then
And that's why his face fell again.

You did not give command to sacrifice,
But these two did not think about it twice.
They brought an offering each one of his wares,
And by that gift they thought to climb the stairs
To paradise and stop before its gates
Where cherub with a flaming sword awaits.
Each gift was perfect in its right and each
Conformed to that law Moses came to preach.
You favoured one, the other cast aside,
And so religious strife began the tide
Of bloodshed that still haunts the faded earth.
Each brings a different sacrifice of worth,
And brother kills his brother in Your name,
And follows on the self-indulgent game.

6 So YHWH said to Cain, "Why are you
Angry? And why's your face downcast?
7 "If you do well, then won't you too
Be one accepted? And at last
If you do not well, sin lies at
The door. To you it's passion that
You ought to overcome by trying,
Unless you prefer loss and dying."

My heart is angry when I see the grace
You give to others in this earthly place.
No sacrifice can please You, that I know,
No thing that man can do will ever show
A great advantage here before Your throne.
Each one must stand in judgement there alone
Without a lamb or blood or fruit or bread,
And give account for what he's done and said.
No use to see the other's jealous eye,
Since there's no sacrifice to meet the sky.
The only thing that counts, Beloved, with You,
Is making just and right the things we do.
If not, it's sin that's lying at the door,
And offering is no better than before.

8 Now Cain talked with his brother Abel,
And then it happened, not in fable,
When they were in the field, that Cain
Rose up against his brother. Vain
Were Abel's struggles, he was slain.

Three things are to avoid, first not to talk,
Then not to have a brother, not to walk
Alone in fields, at least not when the other
Has talked a while and claimed to be a brother.
It is the good and great in their own sight,
The ones who know they only have the right
To oil and gold and power because they are
So infinitely worthier by far,
Who come to blows against the one who seems
To block the shortest way to oil pipe dreams.
It is the favoured ones, the one's God's given
The chance to rule and own, the ones who've striven
To better self and theirs who strike down dead.
Beloved, I'm too among the better fed.

9 Then YHWH asked Cain, "Where is your brother
Abel?" He said "I do not know.
Am I my brother's keeper, mother?"
10 And He said "What is this you show?
What have you done? Your brother's blood
Lifts up its voice where like a flood
Upon the ground it calls to Me.
11 "So now you are cursed from the earth,
Which opened up its mouth to be
Receiver of your brother's birth
Blood from your hand as of no worth.
12 "When you shall till the ground, no longer
Shall it yield to you strength or stronger.
A fugitive and vagabond
You shall be on the earth beyond."

Though You speak not to Abel, Abel's blood
Cries out to You, soaked earth like in a flood.
There's only Cain now that You can address,
And so You speak to him to curse and bless.
The blessing is You take away the trade
He had so fondly kept, and keeping made
Himself seem to obey Your brave command
To tend and keep the soil with tender hand.
You strike indeed what he loves best and that
Is blessing sure for future habitat,
And punishment. You always give the choice
Of blessing or of punishment. The voice
Is man's to utter which he will. I take
The blessing, my Beloved, for Abel's sake.

13 Cain said to YHWH, "My punishment
Is more to bear than I had meant!
14 "You surely drive me out today,
Out from the land where I would stay,
I shall be hidden from Your face,
A fugitive in every place,
And vagabond upon the earth,
And there will not be any dearth
Of those to find and kill me there.
Do You really think that is fair?"
15 And YHWH said to him, "Therefore, who
Kills Cain, vengeance of seven is due."
YHWH set a mark on Cain, lest one
Should find and kill him on the run.

Cain fears that he who finds him in the field
Will rise to kill him. Each man's tasks so yield
The fruit of hope and fear as it may be.
What I have done returns oft to haunt me.
Appeal of hope, and after all the slaying,
You still, Beloved, address him no delaying.
You speak to him who killed his brother but
You leave the just and good to wonder what.
Yet Cain is still the slave of his own fear
No matter what You say, what You hold dear.
You mark him out with love, so no one can
Kill him in vengeance for his crime to man.
Mark me too, my Beloved, despite my crime
In thought, in act and word, and last in rhyme.

16 Then Cain went out from YHWH's presence
And lived in Nod, before Pleasure,
The land of Farting, to commence
17 To know his wife in fullest measure,
And she conceived and birthed Enoch.
Cain built a city out of rock
And named after his son Enoch.
18 To Enoch there was born Irad,
Mehujael's the son he had,
The next in line Methushael
Who sired Lamech, a man from hell.

You gave, Beloved, the task to humankind,
Profession and career that he should mind
The earth and till it for its fruit and glory.
But what result is this in Enoch's story?
His father Cain lost the one good profession
That You approve, and so by Your confession
It's not his fault if he goes on to build
A city and to found a mason's guild.
Initiating his son into sin
Was what gave him the head-start then to win.
If we judge things by reputation of
Inventors, then the city's not above
The evil lust and passion of Cain's crime.
As such Manhattan is not worth a dime.

19 Then Lamech took himself two wives:
The name of the first was Adah,
Then Zillah too, the name survives.
20 'Adorned' gave birth to Jabal, ah,
The father-patron of tent-dweller,
And cattle-breeding, an exceller.
21 His brother's name was Jubal, he
Was father-patron of the free
Who play the harp and flute. 22 And as
For 'Her Shadow' she also was
A mother, first to Tubal-Cain,
Father-instructor to the strain
Of craftsman in iron and in bronze.
Tubal-Cain's sister, for by-gones
Was named Naamah, a pleasant soul,
All civilized to reach their goal.

Ah, new professions of an evil breed
Enhance the world of passion, lust and greed!
The tent-maker and livestock breeder are
The children of a murderer, the star
Of crime. While Rome burns Jubal plays a flute
And Caesar's violin is heard to boot.
And metal-work is needed to make locks
And weapons to protect the shipping docks.
Let me go back to Adam's dibble stick
And burn no candle but the inner wick
Of my own rock-hewn, dusky, chambered heart.
To love You, my Belovèd, be my art,
And my craft be to cantillate Your name
Rejecting Cain's brood and their irony fame.

23 Then Lamech piped up to his wives:
"Adah and Zillah, hear my voice,
Wives of Lamech, my speech contrives,
Hear how I've killed a man of choice
For wounding me, and for my hurt,
A young man I could not avert.
24 If Cain shall be avenged for seven
Then seventy-seven is Lamech's heaven."

Who killed a man before appointed prime
And took his name was the first man in time
To take a second wife. Let that be fair
And warning that the origins are there:
Polygamy for vaunted lawfulness
Is brother to the boasting crime and mess
Of violence and murder. Lamech would
Appropriate the mark on Cain that should
Protect him from th’ avenger. Lamech boasts
Ten times the vengeance, in his pride he toasts
His evil deeds as deeds of divine blessing.
Beloved, put on our wounded hands a dressing,
And wake the human soul to know her way
Of violence and lust has gone astray.

25 And Adam knew his wife again,
And she gave birth, man among men,
A son named Seth, for she decreed
"Appointed as another seed
Ælohim has given me instead
Of Abel, killed by Cain, who fled."
26 And as for Seth, to him also
A son was born, a name to know
As Enosh. So they then began
To call or cantillate by plan
The name of YHWH for partisan.

Let others fight the fight of faith and go
To battle and the march, let others show
Their strength and willingness, I stay to fight
The peaceful battle of the day and night.
I follow, breath to breath, Your lovely name,
I hear its sounds and syllables. No shame
Bear I who am not civilized nor couth.
No shame have I who merely grasp the Truth.
Al-Haqq, Al-Haqq my beating pulse repeats.
I have no other miracles or feats
Of faqir or of dervish dance and whirling.
I count no alms in carets gold or sterling.
I join the growing grass in whisper shout
Allah Allah and Huu and turn about.

GENESIS 5

1 This is the line of faith that takes
From Adam . Now Ælohim makes
The man according to His plan.
2 He thus created them, both man
And female, blessed them, and began
To call them humankind when they
Were first created, on that day.
3 And Adam lived one hundred years
And thirty more, those years of tears,
Then sired in his own likeness one
In his own shape, named Seth, his son.
4 After Seth's birth Adam lived on
Eight hundred years, he lived to spawn
More sons and daughters. 5 All the days
That Adam lived, (it may amaze),
Were nine hundred and thirty years,
And then he died. 6 Seth, it appears,
He lived one hundred and five years,
Then sired Enosh. 7 After he sired
Enosh, Seth lived, loved and admired
Eight hundred years and seven, and had
Both sons and daughters, not too bad.
8 So all the days of Seth amounted
To nine hundred and twelve years counted,
And then he died. 9 Enosh lived on
For ninety years, and sired Cainan.
10 After the birth of Cainan, he,
Enosh, lived eight hundred, let's see,
And fifteen years, had sons and daughters.
11 So all the days, my seals and otters,
Of Enosh were nine hundred and
Five years, and he died, understand.
12 Cainan lived seventy years, and then
Produced Mahalalel. 13 Say men
After Mahalalel was born,
Cainan lived eight hundred, both morn
And eve, plus forty years, and had
Sons, daughters too, again, not bad.
14 So all the days of Cainan were
Nine hundred and ten years, aver
That he died too. 15 Mahalalel
Lived sixty-five years to an ell,
And sired Jared. 16 After the swell
Sired Jared, then Mahalalel
Lived eight hundred, if truth to tell,
And thirty years, and he had sons
And daughters too. 17 So all his funds
Were eight hundred and ninety-five
Years, he died and was not alive.
18 Jared lived one hundred and two
Plus sixty years, and had a boy
Named Enoch, which he counted joy.
19 And after Jared had sired him,
Jared lived like the cherubim
Eight hundred years, and had both sons
And daughters. 20 So the length of life
Of Jared was nine hundred rife
And sixty-two years, and he died
With all the honours that implied.

I Jared give my son the name that Cain
Gave to his firstborn, though I'm sound and sane.
The first Enoch was an initiate
Into the urban veil of sin and hate,
While this my son I dedicate to You
To find bucolic sense in flower and dew,
Initiated in the whirling of
Your lovely name and in Your tender love.
I Jared give my son the name that cursed
The world with city-life and with its worst,
That a new Enoch might come in his place
And start a new page and a faithful race.
I Jared give my son to You for life
And pray that he will stop the blood and strife.

21 Then Enoch lived sixty-five years,
And sired Methuselah. 22 One hears
After he sired Methuselah,
Then Enoch walked around in awe
With Ælohim three hundred years,
Had sons and daughters without tears.
23 So all the years of Enoch were
Three hundred sixty-five and sure.

Enoch, initiate, the seventh son
From Adam whirled the flaming gates and won.
His secrets are not known to any but
The few who read the hidden words and what
Is written in his book. The number of
His years is made of one year or above
By an eternal day. Three hundred years
Sufficed to whirl to heaven without fears.
Let me, Belovèd, whirl for one brief day
And find myself on earth, on earth to stay
Within the gate of truth where I may meet
The blessèd Enoch, study at his feet,
And see beyond the veils to where You stand
Beside my stomach, near my tongue and hand.

24 And Enoch walked with Ælohim,
And he was not, but as in dream
Ælohim took him, coat and seam.

Take me too, my Beloved, I would not be.
That's why I walk and whirl eternally,
Neglect my living and my earthly host
To find by whirling I am with my Dost.
Take me too, my Beloved, I would not speak
Another syllable, but Your name seek
In every word I say. Let me return
And in confession's love, oh let me burn.
Take me too, my Beloved, I would not fear
The sounds of strife that daily strike my ear.
I turn the hammer strokes to melody,
The copper kettles to eternity.
Take me too, my Beloved, I walk with You
This gallows floor, let all my days be few.

25 Methuselah lived one hundred
And eighty-seven years, it's said,
And then sired Lamech. 26 After that,
Methuselah lived where he sat
Seven hundred and eighty-two,
Had sons and daughters, not a few.
27 The length of Methuselah's life
Was nine hundred years done in strife
And sixty-nine to end his life.

O my Beloved, why did you tell Enoch
To name his son Methuselah? What stock
Should any take in that the while? Why should
The people stop to think? I doubt they would
Or did. So it shall come upon his death?
Beloved, You surely know why you give breath
To one for centuries and then to one
To die in childhood before life's begun.
What is it that should come the year that he
Will die? Your mercy lies here openly.
You make him live longer than other men
So that the Flood should not be seen till then.
I think my knowing of hate would have left,
Had I been You, his parents grieved, bereft.

28 Then Lamech lived one hundred and
Eighty-two years, and was well-manned
With one son, 29 "Noah known by name,"
He said "Will comfort in our game
Of work and toil because the ground
That YHWH has cursed is spread around."
30 After the birth of Noah, then
Lamech lived five hundred and when
Ninety-five more years passed, he got
Both sons and daughters for his plot.
31 So all the life of Lamech was
Seven hundred seventy-seven years,
And then he died. 32 And so that does
Leave Noah five hundred years old
With Shem, Ham, Japheth, sons all told.

What comfort has the baby Noah brought
To those who toil and work upon the ground?
Methuselah lived a long life and sought
The way to heaven, while Enoch whirled around
And walked with God. And Lamech was a fighter.
What comfort needed they? Their lives were filled.
Could Noah make their balanced burdens lighter?
I think not, since it seems that Lamech's killed
While still a youth of seven hundred years.
And even Noah was mere youngster when
His father died. Poor orphan, caught by fears
Of violence and what the earth was then.
The comfort of a day is often long
In coming, whether Noah's weak or strong.



AUTHOR: THOMAS G. MCELWAIN

Copyright © 2007 Adams & McElwain Publishers and Thomas McElwain First Published in two volumes, The Beloved and I 2005, and Led of the Beloved, 2006. Second Edition, 2010 Third and revised edition, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this verse commentary on the sacred Scriptures may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from publisher.

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It seems to me that there is enough in these first five chapters of the Bible that God would not have needed to provide us with any more revelation than that. I shall try to read five chapters a day and make a comment or two on the reading. What impresses me today is that Genesis 1:1 provides a summary of God's revelation. It establishes God as the distinct Creator of all things. It follows that nothing created is God. It follows that God is Sovereign over all things by right of creatorship. It follows that God loves us, since He went to the trouble to create us. It follows that God is gracious and merciful. It follows that God has the right to tell us what to do and we have the duty to obey Him. It follows that God holds people responsible for how they relate to His commandments.