Falling Through Eden

Adam felt sun and sucked at pulpy fruit,
spitting the seeds between his dusty toes.
He never searched the fig tree's roiled root
nor felt a thorn upon the nose-brushed rose.

He tapped the tiger's fawning teeth and knew
no growling worry at the sun's soft fall
(with warming Eve to hold against the dew
and Eden's boredom): nor cared nor thought at all.

But what load to saddle on a simple man:
to be the first! He could not bear it long
and did the dooming error. Then he ran
and found outside he gloried in his wrong:

He burnished evil, savored bright new fears,
and dreamed of Eden through a thousand years.

Alan C. Elms

Reprinted by permission.

Falling Through Eden Jack Robert Correy The Frog A Behaviorist to His Love forty Sonnet on an Ice-Floe How Khrushchev Stole ... My Life in 3 Paragraphs fifty With Love to X

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