Leaving the Garden
Sure, the fruit was pleasing to the eye. Eve
held it out like a breast for me to taste;
what was I supposed to do? Could I waste
God’s precious fruit? Let it rot? To conceive
of sin was beyond my innocence. Leave
and return no more, God ordered. Our haste
rose from fear, but more from shame; self-abased,
we turned away from Mike and his sword: LEAVE!
“Do you think we earned that?” I ask. Eve shakes
leaves from her hair. “Was it not the serpent
beguiled us?” But we’d eaten the fruit—snakes
can’t damn! Knowledge, good, evil, what it meant
to us was freedom. Choice. We took our breaks,
and lingered until that voice cried: Repent!
©David M Pitchford
19 November 2007
Filed under: ODD, creative souls, ekphrasis, esoteric, mantra, poem, poems, poetry, self empowerment, sex, sonnet
Knowledge, good, evil, what it meant
to us was freedom.
That is my favorite line in this piece. It is a thought that could be true at the beginning of time and now.
Thanks. I was just having a discussion over this kind of thing yesterday. When you split the line like that to run on, it is called enjambment. The line itself holds one meaning, and then it carries through into a longer thought with further, deeper, or different meaning. I really don’t recall if that was consciously done, but I’m very happy with it. Need to go back now and put an em-dash between the fruit and snake so it doesn’t look like a snake-of-fruit that we ate there in the garden . . .
David
What Sara said..:)
“go back.. em-dash..so it doesn’t look like a snake-of-fruit that we ate there in the garden . . . Heh. Heh. Good one..:)