Covenant of Glass and Coal

God’s anger sheared heaven’s crystal,
spilling fractured color –
a scar of promise,
blood-lit and water-tempered,
hung quivering between judgment and reprieve.

Below, the ark drifted
like a splinter driven from Creation’s palm,
bearing lives unearned
through devastation’s molten throat.
Around it churned waters thick as ink,
a black baptism, abyssal and fierce,
cleansing through erasure.

Beneath, bodies like lost scriptures
folded silent beneath currents,
their stories peeled away
until only bones hummed
in silt-heavy refrains.
Here, divine wrath boiled
to a sea-glass edge,
sharp enough to sever epochs
from eternity’s fabric.

Yet, the the made-to-hold floated –
buoyed not by wood but by bond-oath,
a whispered Word
pressed into pitch-lined seams,
unseen hands lifting
the remnant above ruin,
generations curled embryonic
in this womb of timber and tar.

Then a door opened on earth
still shivering, reborn,
soil raw and blinking
in the glare of an unfamiliar sun.
Air heavy with storm’s exhale,
perfumed by forbearance newly distilled.

They stepped forth
bearing floodwater memory,
each footprint a fragile, solemn prayer,
hope quivering like lantern flame
against shadows still lurking
beneath new-grown grass.

The bow remained,
curved like God’s eyebrow raised
at mankind’s stubborn, quivering trust,
glass-bright, coal-hard,
a single burning filament
connecting ruin and renewal –
the stark geometry of wrath fulfilled,
the gift unearned refracted,
and life returned
to earth’s still-shuddering bones.