Excavations

The Snake

They would blame it on me: the heat of the sun, bearing down
on their hot sweaty necks.
The pain of muscles aching from overwork,
the death of their children
and all the blood spilled onto dirty rushes.
They always wanted someone to blame.
Their eyes, when they sought me -
shifty, restless with the desire
to disobey. Children with their hands
itching to get caught in the sweet jar.
When had it ever been different?

I saw it coming, of course,
and I told him that no good would come of it
but naturally he refused to listen to reason.
So there I was, sent to the garden
on a ridiculous mission of goodwill.
Get to know them, he said. They'll grow on you.
He never listens to my advice.
Those vipers were bad from the beginning;
beautiful, oh yes, they had his face and eyes
and his fair speech and long limbs,
to look at them was to love them,
how could one not fall in love?
The woman, ah, she with the tumbling frothing curls,
sweet waterfall of gold glinting reflected in the pool...
But they were made of clay. Clay cracks.
It oozes in the rain, and if tempered in heat,
it shatters when you drop it. It has its uses,
but it's still clay.

Like all parents, he had eyes only
for his children. Who was I to argue?

We met for the first time in the olive orchard, she and he and I,
she lusting after my white skin
and wondering whether she could touch
the muscles on my alabaster legs,
he thinking of what it would be like
to have wings of his own,
to fly and touch the face of the sun.
They were brown and soft. They were
people of the earth, and the air fascinated them,
for it was an element that had never been theirs.
They could not see beyond their world
and they tried so hard - they did not even see
the shimmering green leaves swaying
in the breeze, the green olives
begging to be sampled, the impossible softness
of soil. They glanced at the deepening blood-crimson twilight
and then looked away. They wanted to see
stars in my eyes. Please, murmured the woman,
please give me a star, and let me name it
after myself. Let me keep a star.
It would be such a lovely thing to keep.

They were always like that with me.

No, I said, I have something better.
For that was not what they wanted.
I saw even then that my stars,
my sphere, my music, would never be enough.
I sang to them and it bored them
unless they heard their names in the chords.
They would not even want to breathe
in that dark, silver temple of sound and light.
So I pointed them in the right direction,
the way they so obviously wanted to go.
There, that's where your real interest lies.
You see those golden apples? And that was it.
It took no more convincing. And in truth
(have I ever lied, save by withholding truth?)
I gave them exactly what they desired.
Like their father, they have children,
little copies of them that are perfect and pretty
until they crack. They are extremely fond and proud.
Have you ever seen a woman's face
during childbirth? She screams, she curses,
she swears she hates God and the whole male race,
and then she has her child in her arms
and even if it doesn't have all ten toes
or fingers, she still sees nothing but her child.
It's all because of me. It's the pain of bearing
that makes her realize how much she loves her progeny.
It's sending her son to bed without dinner
because he played truant,
then wondering where she ever went wrong
to produce such a child, that reminds her.
She can't turn her child out. The son is hers.
And in that moment, she knows divinity.
I've given her a small gnosis.

It's what they want. Of course,
when I don't give them what they want
that's when they complain. They
complain about me. They complain about him.
As if either of us had anything to do
with the randomness of life going wrong!
They're such typical masochists:
they're only happy when they are feeling pain
that they asked for. They always want control.
They never want to see
just how much work goes into
maintaining the atmosphere for suffering.

He doesn't love me anymore. At least,
he doesn't talk to me very much.
The last time I saw him
we were walking in the desert,
he trying to explain his irrational love
for this venomous offspring,
I trying to get him to see sense.
Let them go, I said. They never listen
to us. They only hear what they want to hear.
Let them grow up, and bail themselves out
of whatever trouble they've got themselves into.
We quarreled. He walked away
without saying a word of farewell.
I was left holding the apples.
Did he notice that I cried at his death,
or attended his funeral, leaving a perfect rose
at the mouth of the sepulchre?
I gave him a rose, and a diamond
that I made out of my tears.
I'll never know if he liked my gifts,
we don't speak anymore. I try not to watch,
I can't help being myself, he wouldn't have it
any other way anyhow; and he can't help
being himself. My stars are lonely without his voice.
They've been silent for years.