Note: I don't believe in the creation story literally. Only that it was God's influence that created this wonderful world.

I saw a planet of fire and rock;

I saw promise.

I summoned my power and lo!

There was light and darkness.

Beneath the sun and the moon I toiled,

Till the fruits of my labour were there for all to see.

Sky, water and land;

My creations became one with these.

A haven of creatures beyond imagination,

Each one precious and equal.

The oceans were sapphire;

The lands were emerald

And I watched with swelling pride

As my creations lived

Surrounded by

Love and joy.

Millennia passed;

So did the lives of my creations.

But life strives onward,

Never faltering in its glory.

When you hold a leaf high

And drop it

Does it fall down straight?

No.

It spirals, it flies, it dances

All the way to the ground,

Regardless of direction

Yet bent on its path.

And that is so with my creations.

I merely watched the world in its

Ever-changing myriad of life.

I could glance at a creature,

And the next moment it had altered its

Shape or size.

Even the harshest places my imagination

Had conjured

Could not defeat the burning

Spirit of life.

The deepest abysses beneath the oceans

And the tallest snow-crowned peaks of mountains

Were no match for Life.

As time swept by

And the souls of earth's creatures came to

Rest in my loving arms,

I watched my master creation unfurl.

They were to be the protectors, the stewards

Of the earth,

Their minds filled with my divine command.

I imbued them with qualities that preceded all others

Yet would allow them to remain equal

With all other Life.

The years drifted like the rivers,

Bearing in them like stones

The achievements and aspirations

Of Earth's stewards.

With their quick wit

And crafting perception

Their success swelled,

As did my heart with love.

Their eyes reached out towards the sky

And they learnt in themselves of me.

But then, my brows furrowed.

For these creatures forgot what I had asked of them;

In giving them free will,

I had sacrificed the promise of their husbandry.

I was forced to watch in disillusion

As their fevered hands plundered

The beauties of the world.

Those emerald forests

Whose thousands of years of existence

Had been spent carefully tending themselves

Were stripped.

Green boiled to brown

As the metal minds of Man hacked away at them.

The multitudes of life that Man shared the land with

Too suffered.

The spear and the arrow and the sword, and later the bullet

Beat Man's equals into fearful living.

As if great intelligence had spread a black veil

Over their eyes,

Man became blinded by ignorance,

Their sharp gazes seeing evil wherever difference lay.

The descendants of my creations

Slowly faded

While Man spread like a disease.

No place was safe from its encroachment,

Nor the poison it brought.

Though I saw some who

Strived to turn back to the

Path they were born on,

They were mere glimmers of light

In an infinity of blackness.

Corruption took Man,

Heaving breaths of evil across the world.

The flame of Life guttered.

Now, I wait and watch,

Hoping, praying even to myself

That Man will burn away the corruption

That glazes on it like ice.

For if my failed Stewards

Forget me,

What then?

Will the flame of life again rear high,

Or will it finally fall and die?