it is not good
for man
to be alone—
this logic
was more
than Eve’s explanation
more than
marriage propaganda
it was, and is,
an indictment
of our humanness
our character
our basic baseness
the guarantee
that, left to our own devices,
we will devise vices
and eat from strange trees
believing somehow
that if no one saw it
it never happened:
the myth of the tree
falling silently in the forest
we hear
we see
we know
it is not good
for man
to perceive to be alone
better that he make
a burnt offering
of such futile freedoms
and find hope
in the mutual,
crucial obligations
of community
in nearness to others
far from the slavery
of shadows
and secrecy
July 2009
