Reverse Creation by Bernard Backman Explication Analysis

Bernard Backman’s piece entitled “Reverse Creation,” tells how man destroys the heaven called
Earth that God has created. The literary piece is inspired by the book in the bible, Genesis, which
is about the creation of the universe; it describes how God created the heavens and Earth in
seven consecutive days. God created a graceful globe and indeed, good creatures, and man is one
of those creatures that He had made; He created a man in His own image and gave a man a
power to have control over every living things that moves upon the earth, such as birds in the air
and fish in the sea, but man used the power to control everyone and everything, and they
exceeded the limitations that caused darkness on earth.

The author begins the poem with the line “In the end, man destroyed the heaven called Earth,”
which states that Earth was once a heaven and a beautiful place that brings comfort until the
spirit of humans moved and dominated it with their unworthy actions causing the Earth to face
destruction with its beauty and peace. The first stanza of the piece’s body represents how humans
were duped by the darkness, and all of the darkness began as a result of what man had created,
which they mistakenly saw as security;. The line, “And man liked the darkness, so he called it
“SECURITY”, tells the targeted audience how humans let the darkness be upon them eventually
leading this darkness to take over them signifying the false security that they thought it was
providing, eventually, this said darkness caused man to divide himself into races, religious, and
social classes of society. “Let there be strong government to control us in our darkness” is a line
in the second stanza which provides us a vision of how humans have created this authority to
rule them over their darkness. This demonstrates how vulnerable and dependent humans can be.
“Let there be armies to control our bodies, so that we may learn to kill one another neatly and
efficiently in our darkness.” this tells the audience how this authority that man has let guide them
through the darkness, is choosing to use violence as an answer to problems and issues they might
face. As this strong government, they believe, created armies through vulnerable human beings
under the darkness, which they've trained and controlled to kill one another, which is much
neater, efficient, and decent in their perception as they believe that this is the solution to the
revolving problem that they created for themselves in the first place.

In the third stanza, it cites how humans invented things like rockets and bombs to kill each other
much faster and easier, as stated in this statement, "Let there be rockets and bombs to kill faster
and easier," demonstrating how cruel and complex a human mind can be while still being ruled
by darkness. It demonstrates that humans are far more intelligent when it comes to creating
something that can cause harm and pain to one another, but they are incapable of inventing a
proper way of protecting one another in the first place. A line from the fourth stanza states “Let
there be drugs and other forms of escape for there is this constant annoyance… reality which is
disturbing comfort.” which describes how man would rather blind themselves with the fake
scenarios they have chosen to see the world with instead of the reality that is surrounding them.
They regard reality as a hindrance that causes annoyance because it disrupts the false reality that
they've created, which is still accompanied by the darkness they consider as a form of security.
This is why they develop methods to avoid reality, because it contradicts their beliefs and desires
in life, because reality is full of truth, which humans tend to avoid.
Moreover, the fifth stanza explicates the division of nations in order to reveal who they believe is
their common enemy, as stated in the stanza, "Let there be division among nations, so that we
may know who our common enemy is." This proves that humans are creating destruction rather
than looking for a solution through the differences of each nation. They do not agree with
differences, but rather see them as a characteristic of their foes. As a result, whenever they
encounter a nation with beliefs diametrically opposed to theirs, they regard them as an enemy.
The line "Let us say that God thinks... as we think hate... and kill." in the sixth strophe tries to
deliver how man has reached a point where they have this belief that God is on the same level as
them, thinking in the same way humans do. They are blinding themselves with this desired
comfort that God thinks that these unworthy actions that they have made are reasonable and
justifiable.

Eventually, at the end of each stanza, there is a statement that says, "And there was no morning
and no evening on the day before end," which means that because humans have chosen to do
something that is morally wrong, there is no hope left on each day. Until the day of destruction,
the hope was gradually consumed by the darkness, and when the end came, there was no more
hope leading to its end or great destruction.

Finally, we can see in the whole poem how man slowly destroys our planet and what their
characteristics are. They want darkness, killings, rockets, bombs, drugs, and more. As we read
more, we're also close to its ending, which Earth finally rested after all of this suffering and all
man worship one true God. At the last line the author put “and in the silence, over the smoldering
ruins...HE WEPT”. Show's that our God is devastated because of the things that's happening in
our world.