CASUS NOSTER [Prelude]

PRELUDE

Long before this poet sang
the words of Israel rang through
to the West, where they were met
with praises -
how men would know the plight
of their wives came from Israel,
its stories, its strains,
its native tongue
telling them that wives were always
at fault, since that fateful day.

Long before this poet sang
a man across the Pond cried to make
something that no one's eyes read before -
a chance to tell the world
the story behind the story
of Israel,
a chance to tell the world
that in fact he (blinded) could see
the Muses of Homer, of Virgil,
and make them his own
in a language much more vulgar -
vulgar so that he could
faithfully blame (yet again)
the wives.

Long before this poet sang
a woman rose from the slumbering
body of a man,
a master who kept her body
under his, who kept his arms taught
around her moist body,
keeping her down in body
and mind.

This woman is hailed
as the mother of all;
this woman is condemned
as the damnation of us all –
though what man
in all his right mind
could damn his mother
for eternity?

When man wrote of man
and woman
he made the cunning of the Tempter
something
that was soft,
weak,
dying to be bolted down
by the hands of man.

Though she had not been given a voice.

This poet – a man – now sings
of such harshness,
of such ease of temptation
through any sort –
especially that of
demonic notions.

The unfair trial of Eve
breeds remorse for fallen woman.

But woman is very much alive.

But woman is very much here.

But man takes woman and makes her
temptress in our fall –
when woman only did it
for love,
for being,
for man.

You would have eaten the Fruit from her hands.