Yahweh stands in the pre-dawn darkness, coiled, relaxed, delighted, unsatisfied,

poured out, full.

Shall we do it again? He asks. Let's, he responds.

Day six.

That voice again, authority like fire, desire like smoke.

Creation listens. The angels watch. Let the land produce living creatures.

The livestock, the creatures that move along the ground and the wild animals, each according to

its kind. Yahweh scoops keratin into a heap, cups his hands, and forms the curved hemispheres of a hoof,

pulls upward from the ground to make ankle and knee, forelim and flank, belly haunches,

back, ribs, shoulder, neck, forehead, ears, eyes, muzzle, Yahweh smiles at the world's first cow.

Flashes fill his mind, fat and sacrifice, blood and atonement, grace and love.

But this is not the time for that. Here, now, there is no need. This bull, blinking its calm, dark eyes,

is safe and good.

More cloven-hoved creatures. Sheep with wool, warm, and water-resistant.

He covers Angora goats and hair that's soft, lustrous, and durable.

Then Yahweh fills the cows and the sheep and the goats with milk that's sweet, full of nutrients,

and so abundant you'd think he had more in mind for it than the

appetites of their own young.

As the day goes on, he makes more.

Playful marmosets, moody tigers, empathetic elephants, cunning foxes, solitary bears, timid rabbits, assertive roosters,

curious chimpanzees, sleepy koalas, fierce badgers, affectionate otters. Reptiles now,

crocodiles, comodo dragons, geckos, snapping turtles, brachiosaurus, triceratops.

...