POETRY
Creatio ex nihilo
I believe in the liturgy of rain
where the blue of the mountains is so deep,
cresting waves, you think such a shade
is a bar of soap that you palm
even when your hands are clean
covered in Lamb’s blood.
I mean, to know wisdom is to taste
the beginning of the world—dirt and grass,
sun and sky, the crunch of rocks and meteor—
when stars strummed to the music of God.
I’m amazed, terrified, of the wonder of
and it was so, all the bustle of sudden life,
like a manic celebration for a friend.
They remain in everything, the wisps
of one Breath, the opening cloud
that shattered the waters, tainted now
by twin rebellions. Yet I hear the clock
chime eight on a warm, sweet evening,
see skies as a flowering of silky pink,
a Sunday morning, a smolder of rain—
these seamless, mortal shapes
bubbling up from those first waves
like ephemeral prophets. Each day,
I stumble into the new, vicious light.
When I Ran and Hid from God
I’m not thinking of spires
that glow so brightly,
the teeth of cathedrals
formed like ancestral candles,
or the words of a hymn,
rolling from my tongue
like a catechism.
I’m thinking of waves,
or faces in a mist, maybe
even my face as I wake
at the bottom of a pool.
The waters always reflect
whatever I miss most:
the sunlit creek in my friend’s
yard, the steel gray of his eyes,
the smell of lavender, and,
always, yesterday’s light.
I’m sorry for all the pencils I stole,
the spit I threw at the old ways,
all the fire I held to my bones
to light smoke signals to reach you.
You have laid me among
the secret things, but I tell you
each tragedy is another
something to solve.
And the world continues,
God willing, even though
Eden has lost its loveliness.
It runs around now, talking
like a drunk voice on the phone,
babbling low, never shutting up.
I know the very earth is an echo,
though I wonder if others see
stained glass in the seams of leaves.
My fingers touch soft ground,
the field grass, the tattered wings
of flowers—all your very earth.
Allow me these treasures,
these measures of curious grace,
even as I hide from you
in the cool of the day.
Sarah Tate is a writer, a poet, and a life-long student of literature. Her work has appeared in Calla Press, LAMP, Amethyst Review, Grand Little Things, and previously in Heart of Flesh. She lives in Partlow, Virginia where she enjoys long walks and contemplating things she doesn’t understand.
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Artwork: The Creation by James Tissot. Public Domain.
Heart of Flesh Literary Journal 