Genesis
For Stephen and Katy
The swinging Lord, that master maker
of cool chords, shifted in his empty
heaven and said, "I need me some music,"
So the sky was full of music
and he declared that it was good
And then the equally androgynous Lord
said to herself, I need some light
to fill the fragrant fingers of the night
So the waters shone with light
and she declared that it was good
And when the light and the music played
together the stars wept for the beauty of it
And the swinging, singing Lord said
I need me some people to praise
this thing that I have made
The Lord thought long and long about what
sort of people might be the purest praisers,
what sort of people might truly see the light
And he made man, with his cunning brain,
and he made the zebras and the elk
and the swift running antelope for man
to wonder at. And she made woman with her
imagining mind and her long, limber dancing
legs and her eyes that saw the color in the light
And when the man and woman had been crafted
The Lord declared that it was good
Then the man heard the light in the woman's eyes
And the woman saw the music in the man's mind
And the music was the silky manes of violins
And the light was like the laughter of clarinets
and the glitter of guitars. And the man and the
woman moved to the measure of the music and swayed
to the gold and amber brilliance of the light.
And they knew that the sound was neither his nor hers
nor like anything that ever was before.
And the Lord saw what they had made
And behold it was very good
"I was first struck by the voice in Tony Abbott's poems. The idiom is contemporary, alive, dramatic, the lines fluent and exact. The language is alert, resourceful. I admire the delight and celebration, the openness and honesty, the willingness to confront fear. I admire the fullness of emotions in the poems, even a sense of the miraculous that takes us back to the very source of poetry 'in the cradle of the world,' as well as forward to poetry of the future."
Robert Morgan
"Realistic, specific, tough, tender and full of a lyric keening, Tony Abbott's The Search for Wonder in the Cradle of the World is a collection to savor."
Maxine Kumin
