canto ii: genesis

At time t = 0, Gods do not

exist—nor anything so humanlike

as Will, or Word, or by Intention driven;

nothing to call by Earth-familiar names

to say “It breathes” (or “births”) or “It creates”—

as though the fathomless were us and we

were Universe. No, what abided then

defies our small conception, overhuge:

past mind and human measure—on the scale

of Everything and Ever…

TIME

FORCE

SPACE

(as we have come to know them) then were

1

and coupled as the sum-of-energy

condensed into a dot more slight than dust.

Worlds upon worlds, and all the seething sky

(of gases, galaxies, and zodiacs

and light), compressed to boggling potency

inside a nucleus of fire.

That spark

D

E

T

I

N

G

I

Bursting a blazing universe, it swept

a sudden radiance and spread itself!

under and over, flooding forth—dense heat

diffusing—distance growing—growing out—

as all the singularity

e x p l o d e d

A dot

—then it’s centupled suddenly!—

as all it is

i

n

f

l

a

t

e

s

—stretching its curve

of contour flat, and spreading substance out

across an even tract

of void.

This done,

the spurt relented—ending swift as it

began—and by the afterglow the scope

of Universe had massed from near-to-nothing

to a small globe—so small a palm could hold it:

heavens in hands; existence in a plum.

But on its edges out, like ink in water—

pluming more space into the spacelessness—

while still its crushing densities of heat

and energy keep light itself ensnared…

until

…3 8 0, 0 0 0 y e a r s

cooling… diffusing…

free electrons pair—

and Light broke sweeping through transparency

to pierce the endless and translucent air

So all was

vacuum

darkness and the black

nocturnal ocean of a windless night

pure darkness

unrelenting

But…within

the darkness…hidden and unseen…thick mists

of hydrogen and helium accrue

in globules packed by gravity…

Weight crushed—

cramming the tight-drawn mass on dense, crushed mass—

laying down coat on coat of dust on dust—

until—within each pressure-tortured core—

atoms combusted—bursting into light—

and set the skies ablaze with stellar fusion:

S T A R S!

in sporadic pools!

bright astral hearths—

and forges too! (since in their fiery rooms

the protons fuse—and, as their light depletes,

new elements are burned to stoke the flames,

deterring death). From Hydrogen1 to Iron26

these huge, sidereal foundries fire their cores

until—at last (their storehouse spent)—deep hearts

implode, then send their ruptured shells

exploding

Consider now the Supernova! bright

and blending lights in indigo and blue

as mirrored bells blow out in irises

resplendent atoms like a flower-flame…

Over And over.

…Era.

Epoch.

Age…

Rich supernovas sow atomic yields

in space. That’s how our sun (a winding ball

of mist) came sculpted from the swirling dirt

it lit eight billion years from origin.

…Nine billion years…

…Ten billion lifeless years

without an eye to mark the nebulae,

watch stars explode, or chart the waxing spheres

as they revolved in vacuum-void. What sense

was there? What being could perceive the time

when all these wonders first unfolded?

None?

Ten billion years had come, and gone—unseen,

and unappreciated?

Well, it came.

The fleeting sentient instant came

—and went.

Yet sentience spawned its like therein; its like

continued after it had ended (gone,

begetter—gone, the father—gone the thing

that was, forever: back into a lost

oblivion of time), while life-passed-on

perpetuated what-could-live! So shift

on shift compounded up to greater shapes

through metamorphosis. A hominid…

It grows, stalagmite-like, in quiet change

from life’s first prototype: a cunning ape—

a mulling primate: now, philosopher

of fire; first “thinker”: Homo sapiens.

And yet, just us—of all the organisms

creeping upon the Earth—looked up to stars

in wonder; asked our knocking chests the cause

of wind and thunder; roamed the barren turf

and sought some Answer for ourselves, for all,

for everything that stirs under the sun—

and sun itself.

Behold! the Universe

had its admirer! Dim, lifeless gas

exploding light-years off? Imagined Friend.

The senseless dust? Coy Lover—distant, mute,

and hurting-dumb to men who wooed the night

and sought a Hand.

How could we know the skies

were deaf as skeletons? the heavens numb

as dirt? They moved as we did, and what moves

must have a heart… must know that they exist

as we do… know, for all their vastness, more

than us… know our true part in this dark globe—

where life arose, but was not told “Because”

or where it’s going…

Lo:

Incipit Deus

Gods…

God.

Was this how Heaven came about?

Was this the origin and genesis

of souls and spirits, Something “higher up,”

a transcendental Answer over all

and mortals’ Meaning from immortal clouds?

Were we so eager to be held, we looked

and found an Earth alive, a teeming world

of things like us (yet higher)? forestfuls

of rustic gods and ruddy sprites, who took

the face of man upon themselves, the edge

off loneliness, and gave the forms we see

a Form to signify?

Then Time itself

would seem like something heavy with a wonder,

as though each moment looked toward or to,

as though some deeper purpose drove it onward…

—myths told ourselves to think the cosmos good?

(Or is this origin of Origins

itself but one more story…?)

Who can tell?

(Whoever thought they could?)

Such is the tale, though, as its been given out

by Faust,

John Faust:

once leader of the world.

It is to him foremost, I think, we owe

our Spirit-less existences—and those

today who haven’t heard his name, surely

you’ll know his handiwork?

They call it now.

Faust. Faust would save us from illogic’s vice,

would blare a spotlight through the dusky woods

of terrifying gods and fiendish sprites

that we might know and so not fear the world—

but tame it.

Time was not an endless round

of cyclic turns and sacred rites, but Now,

Now! Now!—an ever-Present burning forth

of differences and opportunity

to change it.

Faust. Faust says: there are no souls

or spirits deep within the Earth: just mud—

material to better us! with oil

and metals which some alchemy can change,

and power save us!

Fausted, people listen.

And look: the cities, rendered fearless, rise…

They brim with slaughterhouses, armories,

and mills; steel plants and stark assembly lines

ticked to a Standard tock; greased shops of sweat

and wanting, steam in all the alleyways,

and towers shadowing basilicas

with looming iron up—until the stench

of Progress so intoxicates it stinks

to Heaven like a sacrifice, and burns

the crumbling steeple-tops like lye…

True…not the earthly paradise our Faust

had promised—but

so eggs to make an omelet.

Worlds were coming: rich and soft and fine

as oil. Worlds without such suffering

as morals, guilt and warring—suffering

was over…

All was quickening its pace, then,

progressing faster—buildings looming up

and hungry humans: richer, fatter—God

in wane, and exorcized Material

more lord and master of their minds than He,

than anything—as ship on ship and rail

rushed in the New Millennium, and ‘Man’

now cursed Hereafter.

All was ready, then,

and everyone

awaited it.

The turn.

The day. The change.

A world of tinder-hearts

in lust for flame.

And then…

and then…

THE SPARK

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