Creation and After—Michelangelo

Adrian A. Husain

The following poem was first published in the author’s second collection of sonnets Knife of the Tide (The Peepul Press, 2025). In this musing on Michealangelo’s spectacular work in the Sistine Chapel, the poet uncovers facets of timeless relevance, and ponders on the mystery that is the birth of all creation.

Detail from The Creation of Adam, from the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, by Michelangelo, 1508-1512

I knew there were figures and there was sky

and cherubs in a huddle at the back 

purposive, driven—and a figure, slack 

but stirring, head tilted, coming to life

fingers reaching to locate the source

of the infusion of sudden light

gaze watchful, seeking definition, sight

of something—someone—but without recourse

to other than air. Yet a force was there

above, around. Dawn breaking from dark    

with its particular chaos, the ark 

salvaging what remained—while a figure,

all power and sinew, turns around, looking

away—and, sibylline, gathers up a book. 

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Adrian A. Husain was educated in England and Switzerland. He did his BA (Hons.) at New College, Oxford. He received a PhD for a thesis on Shakespeare and Machiavelli from the University of East Anglia and authored the critically acclaimed Politics and Genre in Hamlet (OUP, 2004). He is a winner of the prestigious Guinness Poetry Prize. A selection of his poems was published under the title Desert Album as part of Pakistan’s Jubilee in English series (OUP, 1997). His collection of sonnets titled Italian Window was published in 2017. His first novel, The Dreamwork of Lisa D, is forthcoming.