GENESIS 2........

by **Harry** Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:52 am

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

It is the last river alone.

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

Or blessed garden, Paradise,

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 did arise

To gave command to Adam wise

And said “Of every tree that's set

In the garden to feast your eyes,

You may eat freely what you get.

17 "But from the tree of knowledge met

Of good and evil know you should

Not eat, for in that day you bet

That you eat of it (it tastes good)

You shall indeed die in the wood.”

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

With no helper like him at least.

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 to stand.

23 And Adam said "This is now bone

Of my bones, flesh of my flesh sown,

She shall be called woman, since she

Was taken out of man to be."

24 So a man leaves father and mother

And joins with his wife and no other,

And they together shall become

One flesh to work and play and hum.

25 And they were both naked, the man

And his wife without shame in span.

[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.

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