This Eden story, I don’t get it—help
Me out here. It says beneficent god
Planted a really nifty garden, whelped
Adam there, and ribbed him a luscious bod

To help around the grounds—but with a catch.
The deal depended on their ignorance.
Not knowing right from wrong, they’d have no chance
To muck it up; but also have no sex,

Until that talking snake appeared and vexed
The guileless Eve; she then beguiled her man.
Alas! Our sorry history began—
Paradise lost and eons of distress.

So what’s the score? The serpent one—god,nil;
For us, the shriveled fruit—foul, bitter pill.
                              10/27/05

How did it happen? How did a rosy
Nipple, an infant’s source of nourishment,
Become obscene, affront the dignity
Of decent folks demanding punishment?

That satanic snake feeds the “mortal fruit”
To Eve, who shares with Adam—then the fuss
Begins! And, abashed, Adam hides his glutes
From god, as if the sight of his pale tush

Contaminates divinity. “All right!”
God shouts, “If hidden genitalia
Is all you care about—out of my sight—
Leave the garden! Adopt regalia!

Thus Satan wins the day, makes god his foil—
While man, discretely clad, confronts his toil.
                            10/25/05

The snake you will, of course, remember from Genesis 3:1-5. As for “satanic,” well the book says only that “the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature.” Actually, the unmistakable Satan (called by name) doesn’t enter upon the stage until much later—but for centuries, folks, finding the subtle serpent’s behavior inexplicable, have been assuming that Satan was there—lurking—why else would a simple (however subtle) snake cause such catastrophic mischief? The mortal fruit (words stolen from John Milton’s Paradise Lost), surely not an apple, not in sub-tropical Eden, is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (perhaps a pomegranate). It is, finally, not knowledge, information, that doomed us, but knowing the difference between good and evil. Go figure!

Religious folks are certain; they believe
Snakes talk (and asses too); know, in a pinch,
I’d whistle up a nation from the East
To punish those convinced that life’s a cinch.

But with Amalekites in short supply,
I’m sometimes forced to improvise the means
To keep My folks in line. So, when they try
For independence, yearn for self-esteem,

I send earthquakes, tsunamis, raging storms—
(And, just to make My point, some avian flu)—
Bust up the roads, impede, multiply harm
‘Til Congregations understand My view.

I grin when parents, without irony,
For one child spared, cry out their thanks to Me.
                        10/23/05

Well, the famous talking serpent (who originally had legs, though it doesn’t say how many) appears in Genesis 3:1-5. Balaam’s less famous talking ass appears in Numbers 22:28-30, where she gets into a rather testy dispute with her owner. The Amalekites, you will remember turn up for the first time in Exodus 17:8—but they keep reappearing, and it’s always bad news for Israel. God used other tribes as well to punish his stiff-necked people—gave them into the hands of the Mesopotamians (modern Iraq, by the way), or the Midianites, or the Philistines, or, sometimes, just plain plunderers (it’s all in that old book, particularly in Judges).