The Garden Where Nothing Went Wrong

 

This poem is based on the lost version of Genesis,
a cave painting in the grotto of my missing rib.

 

This sense that something 

went wrong.

The sense that we have fallen

and taken the world down with us.

The sense that all

might have turned out better

had she not made some

colossal mistake 

in the beginning.

The sense that nature
disapproves, and every
flower is shouting about
the impending cataclysm

because a dark mother
tasted the fruit of
unbearable joy.

Dear friend, don't you know

that humans hesitate and
cower before uncertainty

age after age, inventing
the same story again?

It's how we feel when we

don't know how to breathe,

when we don't know how to 

pause between heartbeats,
to savor the delicate bouquet

of this moment.

Some say heaven will appear

when this tribulation is over.

I say heaven is an infinitesimal 

grain of silence
at the tip of your exhalation,

just before you receive

the gift of another breath.

Meet me here.

We'll dance barefoot

in the garden where nothing

ever went wrong,

and there was only

one tree, whose roots
went deep into the loam,

whose branches bent down
with clusters of ripening
sweet stars,

and a sparkling serpent spiraled

up the spine of the Goddess.

The serpent was Wisdom.

The Goddess was Eve.
She marveled at the dust

in the palm of her hand,
blew upon it,
and created a Man.


Engraving by William Blake.
This poem appeared in the Tiferet Journal, Spring 2023