No Snow Fell on Eden
as i remember it – there was no snow,
so no thaw or tao as you say
no snowmelt drooled down the brae;
no human footfall swelled into that of a yeti
baring what it shoulda kept hidden;
no yellow ice choked bogbean;
there were no sheepskulls
in the midden –
it was no allotment, eden –
they had a hothouse,
an orangery, a mumbling monkey;
there was no cabbage-patch
of rich, roseate heads;
there was no innuendo
no sea, no snow
There was nothing funny
about a steaming bing of new manure.
There was nothing funny at all.
Black was not so sooty. No fishboat revolved redly
on an eyepopping sea.
Eve never sat up late drinking and crying.
Adam knew no-one who was dying.
That was yet to come, In The Beginning
.
Jen Hadfield
from Poetry International Web