A tree that grew in the Garden of Eden
a tree of innocence called
the Tree of Good and Evil. It was harmless
as opposites are in balance. It was also
tasteless,
the taste of innocence before it is betrayed.
When God removed the wall
he gave the lemon thorns and bitterness because it had
no hostility.
It is a taste we want most to subdue. It asks
to be left alone.
We use it with fish and tea. We sugar it.
A momentary rupture to the vision:
the wavering limbs of a birch fashion
the fluttering hem of the deity’ s garment,
the cooling cup of coffee the ocean the deity
waltzes across. This is enough — but sometimes
the deity’ s heady ta-da coaxes the cherries
in our mental slot machine to line up, and
our brains summon flickering silver like
salmon spawning a river; the jury decides
in our favor, and we’ re free to see, for now.
I, the Lord, will make barren
your fields and your fairways.
Your refrigerators will be empty,
no steaks and no leg bones,
no butter and no cornbread.
And I will remove your screen doors,
force the mosquitoes indoors
where you lie on the bed undead.
For my house you have not readied,
no flat screen and no broadband.
My habitation is a wasteland
of furniture from motel rooms.
I will send the ostrich and badger
in herds through your wrecked rooms;
your beds will be entered by turnstile;
The first day was a long day
and the first night nearly eternal.
No thing existed, and only One was present
to perceive what wasn’ t there.
No meaning as we know it;
difference was bound in the All.
On the first day, water,
on the second day, land,
on the third day, two kinds of light,
one of them night.
On the fourth day, laughter,
and darkness saw it was good.
But when God laughed,
a crack ran through creation.
On the fourth night, sorrow,
staring away from heaven,
torn in its ownness.
Ethics without faith, excuse me,
is the butter and not the bread.
You can’ t nourish them all, the dead
pile up at the hospital doors.
And even they are not so numerous
as the mothers come in maternity.
