In James Weldon Johnson’s “The Creation,” the speaker dramatizes Genesis chapter 1, verses 1-25. The speaker employs the voice of Southern preacher, exemplified by the lines, “Down in a cypress swamp” and “a mammy bending over her baby.”
First and Second Stanzas: “And God stepped out on space”
The speaker personifies God, giving the Deity the very human quality of loneliness and having Him “step [ ] out on space,” where He observes the vastness and decides, “I'm lonely— / I'll make me a world.” The corresponding Genesis verse states, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Johnson’s speaker gives God anthropomorphic qualities in order metaphorically explain the process of creation as revealed in the Holy Scripture.
In Genesis, “the darkness was on the face of the deep,” because the world was formless. Johnson’s speaker dramatically describes pre-creation as “blacker than a hundred midnights / Down in a cypress swamp.” Of course, the speaker knows that his audience, likely his congregation, would be able to visualize that cypress swamp darkness.
Third and Fourth Stanzas: “Then God smiled”
Genesis reveals that God called for light by heralding, “Let there be light.” Johnson’s speaker creatively allows that first light to beam when “God smiled.” In addition, the speaker metaphorically has the light causing the darkness to “roll [ ] up on one side” while “light stood shining on the other.” To all this drama, God says, “That’s good!” Johnson’s speaker makes God an even more active entity than the Genesis version, where instead of speaking, God’s thoughts are exposed: “God saw the light, and it was good.” At this point, only God could have had that thought.
The speaker then takes the liberty of having God create the sun by taking “light in his hands” and rolling the light into a ball and setting the “sun a-blazing in the heavens.” Using the light remaining after “making the sun,” God “gathered it up in a shining ball / And flung it against the darkness / Spangling the night with the moon and stars.” The importance of light motivates Johnson’s speaker to elaborate on the creation of the earth’s only sources of light. And again, as is repeated in Genesis, the speaker has God aver, “That’s good!”
Fifth and Sixth Stanzas: “Then God himself stepped down”
The importance of the sun is further emphasized as the speaker continues his drama. God begins to walk on the earth with the sun “on his right hand / And the moon on his left.” And the “stars were clustered about his head.” As God walked on the earth, His feet “hollowed the valleys out / And bulged the mountains up.” Genesis more vaguely reveals God’s creation process than this speaker, who imaginatively fills in the gaps as he creates his own creation myth.
In Genesis, God separates the heavens from the earth. This speaker has God spitting out the “seven seas” and after clapping His hands, the thunder begins and rain comes down, “cooling waters came down.”
Seventh and Eighth Stanzas: “Then the green grass sprouted”
After the rain, grasses appear, and “little red flowers blossomed.” A pine tree “pointed his finger to the sky.” This speaker gives specific details again not found in Genesis. He has “the oak spread[ing] out his arms.” He has lakes appearing as they “cuddled down in the hollows of the ground.” He has rivers running to the ocean, and God smiling as a “rainbow appeared / And curled itself around his shoulder.”
In his eighth stanza, the speaker has God creating “Fishes and fowls / And beasts and birds.” God creates by raising His arm and waving His hand and commanding, “Bring forth! Bring forth!” Again, God evaluates His creation, declaring, “That’s good!”
Ninth and Tenth Stanzas: “Then God walked around”
The speaker says that God walked about and observed all that He had created. Nevertheless, just as before He created all these things, God again found Himself lonely. Of course, Genesis does not anthropomorphize God; thus, there are no claims in Scripture that God was ever lonely.
In trying to understand the mind of God, the human mind assigns human qualities to the Deity. As long as one realizes the limitation of such assignment, no problem occurs and much understanding can be gained through metaphor and personification.
God then sits down to think about how to assuage His loneliness. Just as a man would do, He sits by a river with His head in His hands, thinking and thinking, and He finally gets the thought to make a man.
Eleventh and Twelfth Stanzas: “Up from the bed of the river”
The speaker now has God create the first human being by “scoop[ing] the clay” from the riverbed. He employs the image of “a mammy bending over her baby” while she “kneeled down in the dust” working “over a lump of clay.” God shaped this lump of clay “in his own image,” as Genesis says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”
Finally, God “blew the breath of life” into the body of the clay God-like image, and “man became a living soul.” At this point, the speaker/preacher concludes his drama/sermon with the traditional, “Amen. Amen.”
Sources:
- James Weldon Johnson,“The Creation,” poets.org.
- King James Version of the Holy Bible, Genesis 1:1-25.
Linda Sue Grimes - As a writer, researcher, and SRF devotee, Linda Sue Grimes has studied poetry and practiced Kriya Yoga for over thirty years..
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