The Seventh Day - or what God did on his day off

On the seventh day

God played with his creation.

In the morning

he ran down early to the sea’s edge,

and in the crusted rock pools teased

the waving fingers of sea anemones. 

He let the sand, like powdered silk,

run through his funneled fingers

and the shallow water play around his feet,

drawing a sandy wake around them.

Crashing on the rocks the waves leapt

to greet him with sprayed salt.

In the afternoon

he kicked up leaves,

musty in the dark woods,

and chased the spidery seed children of the

rosebay willowherb,

tumbling idly into their new generation

over dry earth.

He dammed the icy streams

to sail twig boats down rocky rivers

and climbed into the branches of rough oaks

looking for secret squirrels

But in the evening -

in the evening he wanted to talk.

So he sought out man and woman by their campfire,

finding worlds within its embers.

Late into the night,

they listened, with their arms around each other,

to the songs of night creatures,

and invented music.

And God thought the seventh day was good,

because he played with his creation –

and the whole earth joined the game.

Oct. 88.    

I wrote this after leading a Sunday School session on the Creation story. As I got to the seventh day and told the children that God rested, I could see how ridiculous that sounded to them. It made it seem as if God had retreated to his sofa and put his feet up. How many of them would have done that, having made all these fantastic things. It occurred to me that to them - and to me too - "resting" is done just as much in play as it is in putting my feet up.