Day Seven

Who wouldn’t get tired shoveling mountains into place,
or plowing oceans with the tongue that spoke
and split open the darkness like a coconut?

Come clamshells and salmon eggs, he called, come
anemones and coral, come dolphin’s giggle and sheen
of the blue whale’s back, the volcano’s belch, sandbars
and seaweed, foam singing in the pelicans’ wake.

Come thunder-hoofed caribou, come spittle of wolves
and leopards, come iguanas tearing bushes, anacondas
in drenched pits, the rhinoceros’ moan, dung beetles
and kola trees. Come man and woman dredged from silt,
stumbling the foothills, bone levers to hoist the beasts
from soil, teeth to chew and swear, hair to clean, to pluck.

Who wouldn’t tire of piling igneous shelves or bundling
storms, sowing black rain in onion fields, smell of wet
ground rising in the pheasants’ heartbreaking cry?

Come Maker, on this seventh day of your beautiful clutter,
and climb a staircase of stars to your bed. Pull up
the covers: ocean waves, wheatfields, lengthening shadows.