Beresheet
  


I

We’re bored. What does he expect us to do
all day? Sunbathe? Talk to the animals?
Plant even more plants? Sing hymns, and praise him for
making it all so easy, endlessly?

Could he really think it’s enough for us to coo
over each other, like all the horny mammals
(is it just for us sex soon becomes a chore?)
we’ve named and catalogued? He says we’re free

but then that there’s one thing we mustn’t touch,
and he tries to joke about forbidden fruit.
It’s funny how, whenever we go for a walk,

it’s where we always end up. Why is it such
a magnet? Why such an arbitrary statute?
We stand there in the evening light, and gawk . . .

II

We’re scared: since we were shown the only door
by his tame angel, it’s been downhill all the way.
The lions we used to stroke and groom now try
to eat us. Winters are tough. Our stupid sons

have fallen out. Granted, it’s certainly more
exciting, but it’s a hell of a price to pay:
to wake up every morning wondering why
wisdom means caution, and thinking everyone’s

an enemy. If we could go back now
this time around would we know such happiness
is as good as it gets? But how long would that last?

What if the problem’s deeper, and somehow
when stuck in the garden we yearn for the wilderness,
and vice versa, forgetting the flaws of the past?

III

We’re bored: it’s as though we’ve seen it all before,
these flowers, these trees, this warmth, this calm, this wall,
these playful beasts . . .

Tom Vaughan

Note:Beresheet means 'In the Beginning' and is the opening word in Hebrew of the Book of Genesis.

If you have any thoughts on this poem,  Tom Vaughan would be pleased to hear them.