Creation: an ancient story

a poem by Gauri Raje

Suspended in the womb
of the cosmos.

In the beginning, was it a seed?
(Was it dark water? Or mucous? Saliva?)
Perhaps an echo of a thought?
The exterior has its own rhythms.

In the beginning, they say,
The cosmos shattered.
The Big Bang, they call it.
A shower of molten gold and diamonds.

I know it different.
Old mother spider sits in the shadows
still
weaving and weaving.
Embroidering life, spitting and stretching
Cleaning, maybe moisturising.
A tender maintenance.
Creation is its own becoming,

One moment beyond time
or is it within time?
She looks at the mass of beauty.
The embroidered web

filled with echoes
of actions, thoughts
and dreams.
The shadow world is heavy.

She sweeps the cobweb clean from the rafters.

And begins again.