Creation

There are writers and philosophers who say that nothing new is ever created, nothing new has been made since the beginning. And they are right, in a fashion, and wrong. But me? I believe nothing new is ever not created, and that creation happens constantly. If someone asked me to read Alice in Wonderland and write it from memory a  year later, making it creative as possible, the end result might possess a bit of the plot and setting of the same story, but the flavor would differ.
I am not Lewis Carroll, and, try as I might, my writing (save what I may have memorized) will never contain the dreamy, chaotic, mythical, fae, fanciful swirl that his writing so easily assumes in a way that states, clearly, "I am Lewis Carroll". My writing will never do that because I am not, in fact, him.
My creation may not actually construct any new matter, or invent any motifs that have never before been introduced, but that does not mean its arabesque of imagery, flavor, and artistic aroma are not, in a fashion, unique. There is an old joke regarding creation and God.
A man says to God: man has ascended, and can create just as God can. See all of our cities and how we've molded metal to our will, and how we've set the world beneath our feet and at our fingertips?
The man and God proceed to set up a contest of creation, where they will each try and grow crops and bring a plant to fruition. God starts, and grows an apple tree instantly, and takes an apple, sitting back to watch the man. The man smiles and stoops to the earth with a seed in hand, and starts digging a hole, until God leans forward and says, "no, no, no, no. You have to use your own dirt."
In this fashion, the philosophers and artists are correct, but I think that creation itself is a major portion of imago dei. What do we know about God in Genesis 1, when we are created in his image, save that God loves what is good, and creates? So writers, artists of every design, may not create new matter, new dirt and plants, but we can still plant and harvest and create, utilizing those tools we have been given. One of my favorite Neil Gaiman talks was his "Make Good Art" speech, in which he tells an audience of students to tackle the world and create something that only they can create, not because they are better than everyone else, but because each person has that potential.
Gaiman also said: "There are better writers than me out there, there are smarter writers, there are people who can plot better - there are all those kinds of things, but there’s nobody who can write a Neil Gaiman story like I can."
I really appreciate that sentiment.



What, on that first morn, did Eve say?
fashioned from that which captures
the heart, those ivory tusks that shut
man's dreams away in careful prison
know they, then, the secret trail back in?

--1-

is it only words crawling
up and down my spine?
you may surrender only so many ribs
before there's nothing left to give

--2.5--

i'm a glass dove
here's my broken cage around a weeping heart
fragile as feathers of rain in this hurricane
whose violent winds, shush, shush -
//--1--
what words did she say?