The Act of Uncreating

Of breath and wind; of dark and light.

Painting by Peter Paul Rubens

Let us be nothing but a breath expired
from lungs whose fullness ever is complete,
that we, as a dividing sword, might split
the earth and drain the churning sea
and gorge Leviathan's chest until it bursts
and he lies stripped of his apostasy. 
He'll heave upon the sand, a tattered sail
teased in the wind, fluttering flesh on dying reef. 

To make the world anew this breath will blow
fire from the east, a burning wind to test
the workmanship of man. That humble shack
formed of your mother's bones must first be blessed,
a cornerstone replaced, transformed to gold,
while copper-colored tares from meadows west
of Babel smolder, curl as kindling, dark
the sky the blackest pitch coal can divest. 

An eastern gale will raze the mausoleums,
rob death's house of every guest he's claimed,
reform the dust into the skins of man,
and lay them on the scales held by the saints. 
If evil is a paucity of good,
no vessel beautified with emerald paint
or chalcedon, whose hollow form is fair,
is laudable but for the blood contained.

So, as the sun dissolves the frosted plains,
Aurora's wind douses the zodiac,
returning all as clay unto the wheel
that spins in the left hand of God. The act
of uncreating leaves a honey-gleam—
a spark dancing across a lion's back. 
For darkness teaches much of God, but not
so much as holy light's sky-splitting crack.