Adam and Eve, by Lucas Cranach The Elder, 1526
She seems a mere girl really,
small-breasted and slim,
her body luminescent
next to Adam, who scratches
his head in mild perplexity.
So many baubles hang
from the tree
it didn't hurt to pick one.
The snake is a quicksilver curve
on a branch she is almost
young enough to swing from.
The garden bores her anyway;
no weedy chaos among
the flowers and vegetables;
the animals so tame
you can hardly tell the lamb
from the lion, the doe from the stag
whose antlers outline Adam's modesty.
She's like that teen-age girl
who wandered from the mall last week
not to be seen again, the world before her
glittering and perilous.
Poem by Linda Pastan
The New Yorker, January 27, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment