The Creation of Adam, by Alastair Llewellyn-Smith

The Creation of Adam, by Joe Machine (UK). Contemporary. Used with permission of artist's representation.

The Creation of Adam

As a blind watchmaker feels
the finely-crafted pieces
into place, 
his fingertips telling him more
than any eye can convey
giving him all he needs to know,
to get the watch to work
 
so, here, God on His knees feels
man into being,
both eyes shut;
intent as Ibragimova
drawing out the essence
of a Bach partita
from her perfect violin;
guitarist’s nails on bony
elongated fingers
weaving a wicker man
from grass and flowers
no dust in this garden – 
just a mummy’s figure forming
inside a sensual binding
of green soft white and gold.
 
Two butterflies flutter
beside a rising incense column,
God’s beard inverted.
 
By His knee, an open book – 
perhaps an instruction manual
written earlier
to make sure He gets it right;
behind Him on the grass,
watched over by another butterfly,
the Torah scrolls wait for Moses
Mount Horeb in the distance; 

a menorah and a Kiddush cup
await the people whom He will choose
when the time comes,
when their time arrives.
 
Living creatures
lambs and rabbits
birds both red and blue
stand witness in pairs
as they will do again, later,
when the waters shall have risen 
unstoppably – 
the butterflies alone
intimate the Trinity.
 
Any moment now,
in an act of unquenchable love,
silent, unsighted God
will lean forward,
unwind the bindings
and set free the chrysalis
with the first ever Kiss of Life,
the ruach of God in Adam’s nostrils.
 
What is the first thing he sees
when he opens his eyes?
The first thing he says?
 
Where am I?
                What am I?
                                How wonderful?
 
Thank you
would be enough.

Alastair Llewellyn-Smith

Alastair Llewellyn-Smith has published poems in Acumen and The London Magazine, and reviews in PN Review. This one is from a sequence called Eighteen Benedictions.