Eden - Jane L. Mickelson

[Lawrence Robinson]

Eden

Gardeners decide who stays and who leaves; sprays, clippers, rakes,
spades for rough hands, tools for the surgical eviction of the unwanted.
Adam & Eve, pests in God's garden, nibble the fruit reserved only for Him.
Their blatant disobedience in obeying the body's demands rather than His 
makes the couple unworthy to remain. They have refused domestication; 
defiant pets, lured by their own insatiable hunger.

Four rivers flow in and out of Eden, now tamed into irrigation canals, 
diverted from the wilderness hovering just outside the Garden.
Within, an angel stands erect, a sacred scarecrow, guarding God's groomed patch.
Motion-activated, the sword hand rises and the body swirls, compass-like, 
at any hint of invasion, holding a weapon now beaten into a plowshare.

The couple scatter at a run, pests repelled from God's back yard,
His feral offspring, still obeying innate demands over those of their maker.
Eve runs beside her partner; why remain and take the blame?
She remembers Adam's whispered plea for a bite of forbidden fruit, 
how hard they tried to check their chuckles as the juice trickled down.
Eve hears the gentle clatter of its seeds, hidden safely in her hand.

	- Jane L. Mickelson