before light
was allowed
to be,
there was
the Darkness of God—
a wind
hovering over
the unformed void,
the welter and waste
that was
and would be.

then the Dark Breath
spoke,
drew creation
from depths
fertile as the corpse
of former gods.

but what primeval worlds lay beneath
that wild, murky mire—were contained
in all that unfolded into our future?

what pasts were forgotten
like the Black storefronts and homes
and churches and graves of York Hill,
Oscarville, Vanport, and Kowaliga
by those who boat and fish and sunbathe
on their seething surface?

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