Cosmogony: a poem

“Cosmogony (2019)” is a rhyming and metered poem that came to Johnston during a hurricane and subsequent flood in Spring, TX in 1994. In this piece, the major forces of Nature in turn tell their origin tales to a dreamy seventeen year old girl on a Galveston, TX beach, and she then spins their stories into her own tentative life philosophies.

This poem, exactingly created in a sort of time vacuum when the natural world around her was on center stage, is a great example of Johnston’s early ability to transfuse beauty and hope into danger and the unknown in order to move forward in this world with her spirit intact.

Readers familiar with her 2018 release of “Mental,” a novel which focuses on one young woman’s determination to be whole and happy, will recognize these verses from Part Two. Reprinted here to spotlight a height of Johnston’s creative ability, this poem is a clever and thought-provoking drama of magical pathos.

This is Johnston’s third book of poetry. She is also the author of “Disaster and Harmony (2019),” a poetry collection, and “Dandelions (2019),” a poem about the wonders of childhood and Nature. Her first novel, “Leaves Subsiding (2010),” written under pen name M. Yoshida McCurry, is about the elusive search for happiness.

Marie K Johnston (aka Kristen M McCurry) is a novelist, poet, visual artist and website creator. You can learn more about her life and art at MarieKJohnston.com. She is a 41 year old married mother of one living in a little arty town just northwest of Houston, TX. She was educated at The University of Texas at Austin and Cornell University, wrote for Walmart.com and Rice University’s Web & Print Division, and taught high school English for ten years before she married.