Breath of the Fifth Day

Storm-wrought sky,
veined with the blue fire of becoming,
where the wind’s mouth opens—
and out of the tumult, wings unfurl:
a phoenix, blazing,
rises from the heart of cloud,
its feathers a hymn of flame,
each beat scattering embers
into the churning dark.

Dragons coil in the thunder’s throat,
their scales catching the lightning’s edge,
serpentine, radiant,
they spiral through the storm’s hall,
breath of fire and vapor,
their eyes bright with the memory of stars.
Seagulls wheel and cry,
white as the foam of vanished seas,
daring the gale,
their laughter a thread
between tempest and dawn.

Below, the world’s first waters
glow with a secret sun—
currents swirling in green and gold,
where shadows bloom and vanish.
Sea serpents, long as rivers,
twine through the kelp’s forest,
their bodies a dance of muscle and myth,
each scale a story
written in the language of tides.

Fish, jeweled and swarming,
flicker in shoals—
sapphires, rubies, coins of living light—
their fins whispering the first songs
of hunger and delight.
Moon-jellies drift,
phantoms in the luminous dark,
while a beast vast as wonder
stirs in the abyss,
its breath a slow thunder
that rocks the bones of the world.

Above and below,
the breath moves—
not wind, not water,
but the pulse that calls
from storm to sea,
from fire to fin,
from the silence before to the riot of now.
Let the waters bring forth,
let the sky be broken open—
let every creature rise,
winged or finned,
in the wild abundance
of the fifth day.

Here, in the clash of elements,
in the meeting of flame and flood,
life leaps from the mouth of chaos—
not tamed, not named, 
but glorious,
each form a question,
each movement a praise.

O, breath of the fifth day—
carry us,
as you carried the first wings and scales,
through storm and glow,
through terror and beauty,
into the world’s fifth morning.