This is a rendering of Genesis 1.1-2.4 in Haiku form with the 5-7-5 structure. It is not intended to be a translation, but a wrestling with the task of maintaining the meaning of the text while adhering to the strict poetic structure of haiku. This rendition has many explicit interpretive decisions, which I believe are faithful to to original intent of the biblical text.

In the beginning

The Creator created 

The heavens and earth.

The earth was without

Shape and void, the deep waters

Covered with darkness.

But God’s Spirit did

Brood over the deep waters. 

Then sounded God’s speech,

“Let the light shine forth”

And darkness deferred to light.

God declared it good.

God separated

Times of dark from times of light

Forming day and night.

There was evening

Followed by morning, day one,

As ever has been.

God then spoke about

An expanse separating

Waters from waters.

The expanse disjoined

Lower waters from upper

And God called it ‘sky’.

There was evening

Followed by morning, day two,

As ever has been.

God spoke to waters

To join together so that

Dry ground could appear.

The waters obeyed,

Forming the ‘land’ and the ‘seas’

God declared it good.

God spoke to the land

To bring forth plants and fruit trees

With seeds inside them.

The dry land obeyed,

Yielding seed plants and fruit trees

God declared it good.

There was evening

Followed by morning, day three,

As ever has been.

God spoke about lights

In the sky at day and night

To tell time’s passage.

He commanded them

To point the seasons and days

And give light on earth,

To rule day and night

Greater one over the day

Lesser over night.

He also made stars,

Placed the lights on the expanse

To shine day and night.

The lights he made to

Govern time and also to

Part the light and dark.

When the lights obeyed

God’s spoken voiced-out command

God declared it good.

There was evening

Followed by morning, day four,

As ever has been.

God told the waters,

“Swarm with life” and to the sky,

“Be filled full with birds.”

And God created

All the life from small to big

In rivers and seas.

And he did also

Make the birds that filled the sky.

God declared it good.

God voiced a blessing

On them, “Be fruitful, increase,

Fill waters and sky.”

There was evening

Followed by morning, day five,

As ever has been.

God spoke to the land,

“Now team with life, every kind,

Crawlers, cattle, wild.”

So God made creatures

On the dry land of many kinds

God declared it good.

Then God spoke once more,

“Let us make humans like us

To be our image.

“Let them then govern

All living things on the land,

The sky and the seas.”

So God created

One last creature – the human

To be his image.

God made him like him,

All of them to image him –

Yes, male and female.

God blessed them saying,

“Be fruitful and fill the earth

Rule it like I would

“Rule fish, birds and beasts.

Plants and trees with seeds inside

I give you for food.

“To other life as well.”

God saw all his speech had made

Called it very good.

There was evening

Followed by morning, day six,

As ever has been.

The heavens and earth

Were finished with everything

In their ordered place.

And on day seven

God stopped his creative work

And entered his rest.

So God spoke blessing

On day seven when he ceased

His creative work

For that day holy

Reminded evermore of

The start of his rule.