An Untold Garden Story

We never learned
this story of the Garden:

how someone whose name
is unknown now,

whose existence itself
has been erased,

stepped up after the Expulsion
to steal a kiss from one leaf

of the Tree.  Did not gnaw 
on the Fruit or lick 

the smooth hard Bark;
simply laid one small kiss

upon one Leaf. Wanted to be
able to say that they

had tasted the source
of Knowledge and then went on

through their life without
any consequence for knowing

just enough to get by;
to have a hint of Truth

linger on their lips without it changing 
anything inside them. Then they’d sneer

at Adam and Eve for being
so willing to go so far in on the Truth

that it ran them out of Paradise
and into the Wild.

We never learned this story of the Garden
because it was kept from us

so we would never dare to question
if they were right

and so we would never know enough
to be sure they weren’t.

All we have is a view of that sword over there
and the genes we carry that

keep us afraid
even as they tell us to try

and get by the flames
to see what we might be willing to do

for even a small taste of something
that will assure us of the way home.