And God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
“I’m lonely—
I’ll make me a world.”

These lines open James Weldon Johnson’s poem “The Creation,” first published in his landmark collection *God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse* (1927). Johnson—poet, novelist, NAACP leader, and a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance—crafted the book to capture the cadence, imagery, and rhetorical power of African American folk preaching while avoiding dialect spelling. “The Creation” reimagines Genesis through the voice and performance energy of a Black sermon, beginning with a dramatic, anthropomorphic God who initiates creation out of solitude, setting the stage for a sweeping, oral-style account of the making of the world and humanity.

The passage humanizes the divine: God “steps out on space,” surveys emptiness, and admits loneliness before creating. Johnson’s phrasing turns cosmic origin into a vivid scene of movement and speech, emphasizing creation as an act of will, imagination, and relationship rather than abstract theology. The line “I’ll make me a world” suggests artistry and agency—God as maker shaping a home and community. In the poem’s sermonic mode, the intimacy of God’s voice draws listeners into a shared story, while the grandeur of “space” and “world” elevates the preacher’s language to epic scale. The result is both reverent and boldly inventive, highlighting the creative power of Black vernacular religious tradition.