Saturday, February 05, 2011

Bible in Haiku, Genesis 2

Dust plus breath of life
(God's creative equation):
a living being.

Garden of Eden
two trees, four rivers, one rule.
Earth-creature tends it.

Alone is no good.
Adam names the animals
but finds no partner.

At last, flesh from flesh
and bone from bone she is born:
true companionship.

Friday, February 04, 2011

Bible in Haiku, Genesis 1

One of my resolutions this year is to make more time to write, but I've been struggling with where to start and what focus to choose. I read a reference somewhere recently (probably Twitter) to converting some big work to haiku, but didn't follow up to find out what that was about. However, I liked the idea, and thought I might take some of the better-known sections of the Bible and see what I can come up with, mainly as an exercise to get my creative juices flowing again. No great promises or grand ambitions, just a starting-point.

So without further excuses, here's my adaptation of Genesis 1:

God said, "Let there be..."
And day by day, it was so.
God called it all "good."

Light/dark, sky/below,
land/water, plants, sun/moon/stars,
and last: animals.

Made in God's image,
humans are given a task:
care for creation.

Six days of labor,
God blessed it all and rested:
Sabbath's gift to all.