Advice to the Creator; Three Riddles
Advice to the Creator
Your hand is free.
Do what you will.
But pause before you set
Your hand in motion
And consider this:
If you’re going to show
Your face upon the waters,
What sort of waters
Should they be?
Why not a sparkling surface
Over something dark
And very, very deep?
But by all means
Make salt a part
Of your ocean’s substance.
Let the sea itself
Be ingredient
Of the universal need to weep.
And the light
That would make
Those waters sparkle?
Make it resilient and thin,
Wrapping things tight,
And make it clear as gin,
Producing a similar glow
And intoxicating ache.
But by no means
Forget the night.
As to the shape and placement
Of landscape and fauna,
Let your imagination run wild.
Set fruit and stone
Side by side
As offering a choice.
Let there be flesh as well as bone,
Silence as well as voice.
By no means
Hide meaning
In any one thing alone.
No,
Balance confusion
With variety.
Let there be repletion
But not satiety.
Lastly,
Finish all with lime:
A pit of bitter chalk
Where everything
Can blend in.
Let dissolution be no crime,
Death no sin—
Merely an end of being,
And an end of talk,
And end of time.
Now by all means,
Begin.