Creepin’ in Eden

Did God create roaches for good?
I know He could.
But was it not
A naughty plot?

Did God give us the creeps for real?
Did He not feel
That’s not the stuff
To show us love?

Did God make us to be like Him?
But, O, how grim,
When I do fret
To see His pet!

 

Colin Lee

colin-lee-small

This is a minute poem with exactly 60 syllables (in 30 iambic feet) and a rhyme scheme of aabb, ccdd, eeff, as prompted by Frank in dVerse’s MTB–The Minute Poem and inspired by Genesis 1:25–26, KJV:

“And God made … every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over … every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’” 

Photo Courtesy: phactual.com

52 thoughts on “Creepin’ in Eden”

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      4. Oh, they’re lying dead everywhere today, in our office as well as our dormitory. Everywhere, every room, I tell ya. (Why do they almost always die upside-down?) Anyway, it’s likely this batch have simultaneously expired their procreative mission, which means … Oh, God help us.

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      8. Thanks, and sorry for the late reply … I just did 10 roaches last night. Argh! I pray Heaven is a place without these critters!

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  2. I hadn’t thought about running into whatever God’s pet or pets might be. Now I’m wondering what they are. The cockroach in the photo reminds me of aliens in movies. Nice minute poem, Colin!

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  3. That’s the second cockroach on WordPress – there was a cockroach kigo on Carpe Diem! Interesting questions, Colin, but I don’t think we’ll ever know the answers!

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    1. Imagine, here in midsummer, when these “cold”-blooded critters metabolise at 40 degrees C: they run like quicksilver and fly like wasps — definitely a much more imminent concern than the weather to poem about! And, you’re right. We might never know the answers. Thanks for dropping by, Kim. 🙂

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      1. I wish I had this poem when I was in high school, it brings clarity to the confusing, sprawling mess of politics and war both through it’s orderly rhythm and through it’s focus on the lives of regular people. Well done!

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    1. That’s one thing I like about the snow … keeping these cold-blooded critters away well enough. I just did 10 last night — yes, bless their souls. Lol

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  11. Love your poem – hate the picture! You do the form so well and the whimsical approach to such deep creation questions make me laugh. I have always hoped that the cockroach came with the curse in Genesis 3. Living in the sub-tropics of Florida, the roach and gator are ever with us; only one of them do I actually stomp… wait, I’m in charge of extracting stray lizards gently from our house; my husband does roach duty. With regards to that procreative mission, they must be flushed.

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    1. Thanks, Jilly! Well I’m afraid, according to the Bible, the roaches should be part of the first week’s creation. (Will they also be in paradise?) Stray lizards? Sounds like a piece of cake. (Heck no!) Roaches are a much lesser evil. Great respect to you Floridians — well, more to you who deal with the “lizards”. Lol

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      1. Ha! Okay, I know the roaches are a part of creation, but I can have my dreams about how the Curse caused us to suddenly go ‘Bleah!’ over them, along with toiling the ground. 🙂 The big ‘lizards’ tend to stay in the ponds and are not an issue. We do have many little lizards and geckos that occasionally slip through the door. I tenderly capture them and return them to the garden.

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      2. I see. Or it might have been the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, huh? While we don’t have big reptiles over here, I like having a gecko or two (preferrably the quiet female) running around the house to eat up small insects. They eat up roaches’ youngs too.

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    1. Thanks, Charley. To be honest, I wasn’t thinking “much”. I got up at 3 am, heavy-eyed, only too eager to take up the MTB challenge, scribbled whatever came first to mind and returned to the hay right after. When I got up in the morning, I took a good hangover moment to recall the “sleep-poeming”. Put it your way … Fun stuff straight out of the subconscious cliff of sanity. 🙂

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      2. Well, to be fair, Charley, it’s rather painless for a poet to rhyme a philosophical question, in comparison to a philosopher who tries to answer it poetically. 😉

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      3. Don’t try to answer it. It lessens the discussion when someone answers an essential question like it is mathematical/empirical. Philosophy’s power is in its questions, not its answers. And the poet is the one who takes the cumbersome sword from the smith and pares it down to a rapier, razor sharp.

        Sorry… must be the coffee talking!

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  14. Like rats & rattlesnakes, roaches are here to spice up our perfect lives, to test us, to bite us, cajole, anger, and frighten us–part of the mysterious grand scheme of things

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