Eden in the Fall

Sheila Martindale
From:   No Greater Love. Goderich, Ontario: Moonstone Press, 1989.

The first spring
— earth spun out of chaos
beginnings

a time of saplings
and birth
of venturing wobbly-kneed
through Eden's
seedling meadows

At what season
were apples ripe in Paradise?
Not in those early days
of awed delight
at all small growths

nor even as summer
reached its height
in the thickening of hedgerows
in long slow days, the air still
with heat

Eve, not in the springtime
or summer of your life
not in your days of naive youth
nor even as you grew into maturity
- you did not yearn
in those years
for a taste of knowledge
or of truth

No
It must have been in autumn
your thoughts turning
and falling among the leaves
when the apples
juicycrisp redglowing
hung with tantalizing readiness
within your reach

Yes then
after the seasons of wildflowers
and lazy warmth

of dreaming and drifting
you were ready
to take a chunk of life
savour its semi-sweetness
taste its stimulating tang

and offer it to him
to share

________
Published in:
Pierian Spring vol 6 #4 (1981)
Closing the Gaps (chapbook, South Western Ontario Poetry, 1983)
No Greater Love (book, Moonstone Press, 1989)

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6

Sheila Martindale's works copyright © to the author.