Genesis

What is first a fantastic story and speaks to children
What is abstruse and foreign
Vessel of every ancient breath

                This would have been enough

What is history and myth and hybrid

What stands at the cusp
Marks a transition,
an evolution and unfolding of self-consciousness

                This would have been enough

What is contradiction

What is interstice
What is fragment, incomplete
and source of all man’s theology

                This would have been enough


What is inexhaustible
of exegesis and every hermeneutic
Deconstructed to brittle letter
dismissed and fed to burning stacks
and found again and held up–oh my Torah

                This would have been enough

But when I read:

“Never again will I curse the earth because of man”

                This is enough.