In the beginning was the dream

and the dream was made woman

and the woman took her brushes

and washed the sky clean

picked up her broom

and swept the desert of all its bones

with her shovel

she cracked open

the mute clay.

 

She called hunger by its true name

and strode through the forests of fear,

gathering up the broken limbs

and fallen flowers.

 

In the landscape of an unspoken morning

she piled the bones and stars

the sand and clay and twigs

the stillborn hearts

and unspent angers.

 

High was the pile

hot the center of creation.

 

Deep in her elation

she plunged her hands

into the burning sky,

she stirred the dying sea,

she lifted the rim and scrabble

pressed fast the fish and feather

crumbled the clumps of stubborn clay.

 

She turned and turned the pile

of what was,

then spread it like a blanket

on the infant land naked of hope and

unadorned with memory.

 

On the blanket of what was

she rested from her work

and dreamed she was a seed

and the seed dreamed it was a garden

and the garden dreamed this beginning into being.