Poem: Creation in Six Stanzas

I have always been drawn to poetry. I fell in love with the poems of W.B. Yeats, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Keats, George Herbert, and John Donne. My enjoyment of poetry did not stop with reading.

During undergraduate, I wrote an entire essay in iambic pentameter for Dr. Don King. In seminary, I submitted a series of five lengthy poems to satisfy an OT requirement in Dr. John Goldingay’s class. Since then, I have found a creative liturgical-theological outlet in writing poems, hymns, and prayers. My poetry corpus is not extensive, but I have been building it for some time and during a sermon on Trinity Sunday 2026, I shared an original poem called “Creation in Six Stanzas.”

The goal of this poem was to try and match the rhythmic liturgical poetry of the original creation story in Genesis 1. In just six stanzas with four lines each, I could not include every jot and tittle from Scripture. The joy that came from writing it was exponentially increased by preaching it with one of my favorite parishes.

Creation in Six Stanzas

Evening came and morning stood: 
Word creating light from dark.
Triune God forming creation’s arc, 
He declared that-it was good.

Evening came and morning stood: 
Heaven stretched across the sky.
The dom’ed firmament resting high, 
He declared that-it was good.

Evening came and morning stood: 
Wet from dry created sea
Earth sprouting green fecundity.
He declared that-it was good.

Evening came and morning stood: 
Sun and moon governing light;
Spher’d sentinels separating day, night;
He declared that-it was good.

Evening came and morning stood:
Deep and high blue teeming,
Fins, feathers, swarming, streaming.
He declared that-it was good.

Evening came and morning stood: 
Land-bound creatures filling groun’
Image-bearing beings, creation’s crown
He declared it very good.