How Big, How Beautiful

a poem from the week of August 3

This is a poem that started with the title. I was originally going to write a poem about all of the damage that will be done by the "One Big Beautiful Bill," but then I heard about the paving of the garden.

How Big, How Beautiful

If they stayed in the garden any longer,
they would have paved over it.
Adam and Eve, I mean. Where would they
have hosted events? They would have wanted
a reason to open the cabinet in which
they keep their china. Except the cabinet
is not a cabinet, it is concrete. And the china is not
china, it is concrete. If God ever came to visit,
they would have needed a place to put
an umbrella. They would have wanted
to unfold it for him, in the event of
the invention of wind. They would have
made up rules about bad luck if God did not
fold the umbrella when they invited him in.
God made the world, but it's their house.
They would have had to invite him in.
He would have had to say things like
"how big, how beautiful" to make them think
they were doing a good job at having a house.
When you live somewhere long enough,
when no one asks you to leave, a house becomes
more than where you live. It becomes proof
you are good at living. It doesn't matter
that building the world took seven days.
Tearing it down would only need to take one.
A man paves over a rose garden
and is relieved by the space he created
from what was once land.
A man comes down from space,
lands on what he has created,
and is dismayed by the lack of roses.

Of the last line, I mean “lack of roses” in terms of the man’s disappointment at Earth’s refusal to perform for him—he is ignorant of his part in it—but also “roses” meaning praise. The man expects to be showered with roses upon his return.