"Morning Person," by Vassar Miller

God, best at making in the morning, tossed
stars and planets, singing and dancing, rolled
Saturn’s rings spinning and humming, twirled the earth
so hard it coughed and spat the moon up, brilliant
bubble floating around it for good, stretched holy
hands till birds in nervous sparks flew forth from
them and beasts — lizards, big and little, apes,
lions, elephants, dogs and cats cavorting,
tumbling over themselves, dizzy with joy when
God made us in the morning too, both man
and woman, leaving Adam no time for
sleep so nimbly was Eve bouncing out of
his side till as night came everything and
everybody, growing tired, declined, sat
down in one soft descended Hallelujah.

+ Vassar Miller

Vassar Miller was born in Houston, Texas, in 1937; she served as Poet Laureate of Texas in 1982 and 1988. Born with cerebral palsy, she often wrote poems exploring religious faith, memory, isolation, and living with physical disability. She wrote ten poetry collections in all; her second, “Wage War on Silence,” was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

She once described the purpose of her life this way: “To write. And to serve God.”