Did she know
there was more to life
than lions licking the furred
ears of lambs,
fruit trees dropping
their fat bounty,
the years droning on
without argument?
Too much quiet
is never a good sign.
Isn’t there always
something itching
beneath the surface?
But what could she say?
The larder was full
and they were beautiful,
their bodies new
as the day they were made.
Each morning the same
flowers broke through
the rich soil, the birds sang,
again in perfect pitch.
It was only at night,
when they lay together in the dark
that it was almost palpable –
the vague sadness, unnamed.
Foolishness, betrayal,
-call it what you will. What a relief
to feel the weight
fall into her palm. And after,
not to pretend any more
that the terrible calm
was Paradise.
by Danusha Laméris from her book The Moons of August (Autumn House Press, 2014). Reproduced with her permission.
I love Danusha Laméris’s take on “the fall”. We can perhaps sense Eve’s dis-ease as she came to the end of the too perfect day, the moments when the lions licked the ears of the lambs and all that they saw in the mirror was beauty. There was nothing to worry about. Imagine that! You can feel the tension building in their bed as they tossed and turned their temptation. And you can feel the enormous relief of “the fall” when she takes matters into her own hands, when she becomes decision maker even though rule breaker.
And the rest is history. It is life, though it isn’t paradise. Life seems far more interesting than paradise. There are challenges, work to be done, decisions to be made, reconciliations to be won. Maybe it is better to have paradise behind us and before us and enjoy the weight of the fall in our hands in the mean-time.
Grits and Grains 