Sculpture: Genesis, Book One

Sculpture:  Genesis, Book One

                  - Prompted in part by annaswirl’s Mannequin
                  (and an unnamed sculpture of my own)

I had intended to sculpt the universe
starting with a small planet of clay
spinning silently on an axis of wood
letting the earth mould in my hands
thumbs working ravines
drawing the world out of primordial mass
like the cosmos coaxing sin

until somewhere along that determined evolution
the world became lost beneath my hands
spinning out of control
threatening balance and sphere
changing form and essence
until it no longer resembled the world intended
but growing a tail and humanoid form

became a world dangling like a head on a spit
as in that movie with the music by Strauss
“Also Sprach Zarathustra”
the embryo flowed beneath my thumbs
gaining symmetry as mountains disappeared
and chasms bubbled magma
mass moving in tectonic rapture

as a mouth and eyes appeared
and the world slid away from my palms
easing down the back of her head
tracing spinal column and cortex lobes
clavicles spreading in galactic mist
like Eve opening her thighs
awaiting the placement of the rib
as somewhere rumbled raven obelisks

the world resembled not an earth
but a decidedly Tenctonese form
of a woman smiling mutely
in wonderment at the lust of this creator
as I took equal parts of darkness and light
moulding firmaments and heavenly bodies
spinning her on my axis of wood