IN THE BEGINNING
light needed creating—darkness
was already here. Commingled,
that first light looked
like a sandstorm
maybe: everything
at once: quavering and resonant
as a plucked string
until God commenced the ceremony
of separations—light
from dark, terebinths
from touch-me-nots, Florida
from the Gulf and sea, Adam
from Adamah/earth, Adam
from Chava, mother
of us all, asps
and whistle pigs
and hellbenders
from them both. God,
who in this beginning
was Elohim, God of Judgement, knew
when there is nothing but light, nothing
can be seen. So now there’s nothing
unmet by shadow. Knew
that to say I am
is to be strengthened
but also severed
from all not you.
Just as Brazil was spooned
by Cameroon before the continents
began their drift, as each of us—so
long ago—was powerless, snug,
and cradled through the air, Creation
is still in and of its Creator as we are each
out mother’s child. But who can remember
such union? With all things separate
and their selves, what wonders.
Yet how each body longs
for connection.
Note from the poet, Jessica Jacobs:
“The 50th Anniversary issue of the Mississippi Review just arrived and I’m honored to be there in such illustrious company with a poem based on the Kabbalistic concept and image of tzimtzum: a contraction of God into God’s self in order to make space for the world—a founding act of great generosity but also of separation and the creation of new boundaries.
