Eden

It's not that anything is changed
between this moment and the next,
but everything is rearranged—
and with new eyes you read the text.

The overpass beneath my wheels
I dread, but dare not close my eyes.
I drive as if no image fills
my mind, of plunging from its side.

If I don't watch the needle pierce
the fragile stronghold of my skin,
I am still whole—until that glimpse.
Before I knew, there was no sin.

You'd looked on Eve a thousand times.
Day after blessèd day you'd seen
the way her hips and shoulders rhymed,
then all at once it was obscene.

Don't think about it.  Just don't look.
The words are there, but I can't read—
until I can.  The world's a book
and in its pages something bleeds.

Yet Eden, as it ever was,
lies all around us, full of snakes,
and all that blessed us then still does,
reaching out through paragraph breaks.

“Eve and the Serpent.” Plate from Penholm by G. Howell-Baker.- https://digital.cincinnatilibrary.org/digital/collection/p16998coll21/id/38116/rec/1, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104281987

Pietà

Did Eve hold Abel thus,
ev'n as she ached for Cain?
Was it for this she came of dust,
for this bore them of pain?

So Mary holds her son,
a swordpoint in her heart.
All prophecies are clanging gongs,
and silent stone cries out!

Yet even to this end,
our second-oldest tale,
even to this does God descend,
where weeping mothers wail.

So shall he fill the first,
our coming from the dust.
So shall he raise us from the dirt
who has lain there with us.

And tears shall turn to floods
that make the deserts bloom.
There will be no more Niles of blood,
when death has been entombed.

But, oh, how long, how long
shall Eve for Abel weep,
shall Mary hold her lifeless son,
and God his silence keep?

Michelangelo Buonarroti’s La Madonna della Pietà in Saint Peter’s Basilica, 1498–1499. Pontifically crowned by Pope Urban VIII in 1637. By Stanislav Traykov – Edited version of (cloned object out of background) Image:Michelangelo’s Pieta 5450 cropncleaned.jpg), CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3653602

O Eve

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals
that the LORD God had made.
The serpent asked the woman,
“Did God really tell you not to eat
from any of the trees in the garden?”
The woman answered the serpent:
“We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;
it is only about the fruit of the tree
in the middle of the garden that God said,
‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.'”
But the serpent said to the woman:
“You certainly will not die!
No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it
your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods
who know what is good and what is evil.”
The woman saw that the tree was good for food,
pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.
So she took some of its fruit and ate it;
and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her,
and he ate it.
Genesis 3:1-7

And when the serpent whisper
slid hissing in your ear,
how long did you resist it,
“You surely need not fear”?

How often did it echo
on any given day?
How often did you beg God
to take the thought away?

Yet if he did, it crept back,
louder, stronger, again:
“But did he really say that?”
revolving without end.

You tried to tend the garden,
distracted through your days,
your eyes forever drawn to
the truth you mustn't taste.

How long 'til it consumed you,
caught in the serpent's teeth,
until you failed, as all do?
And we have called you weak!

Yet be consoled, O mother,
howver deep you fall,
for there will come another
to enter that same brawl,

and he will sink down with you
to dwell among the dead
whence he has come to lift you
and crush the serpent's head.

You, firstfruits of temptation—
how can the heart conceive?—
are mother of salvation.
Exult! Exult, O Eve!

“Eve and the Serpent.” Plate from Penholm by G. Howell-Baker. – https://digital.cincinnatilibrary.org/digital/collection/p16998coll21/id/38116/rec/1, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104281987

Rejoice, O Daughter Mary

One for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception:

Rejoice, O daughter Mary,
O Zion, full of grace,
for in yourself you carry
the dawn of endless day.
And he who dwells within you,
who makes your darkness bright,
is all your hope's fulfillment
and heals the serpent's bite.

The shadow of the Most High
will douse the sword of flame.
Your son will be called Holy
and end the years of shame.
Then what we learned in Eden
that struck us at our roots,
with that he will redeem us:
The seed puts forth new shoots.

Our very death is hallowed,
for he will share its stings,
and we, who dwell in shadow,
shall find it is his wings.
The little one you carry
is God who hears our voice.
Rejoice with us, O Mary,
O mother of our joy!

Berthold Furtmeyr , “Tree of Death and Life”, Salzburg Missal (15th century) By Berthold Furtmeyr, Miniaturmaler des 15. Jahrhunderts – http://www.rpi-virtuell.de/arbeitsbereiche/artothek/impulse/paradies/furtmayr/furtmayr.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11425618