Contraband

The tree of knowledge was the tree of reason.

That's why the taste of it

drove us from Eden. That fruit

was meant to be dried and milled to a fine powder

for use a pinch at a time, a condiment.

God had probably planned to tell us later

about this new pleasure.

                                  We stuffed our mouths full of it,

gorged on but and if and how and again

but, knowing no better.

It's toxic in large quantities; fumes

swirled in our heads and around us

to form a dense cloud that hardened to steel,

a wall between us and God, Who was Paradise.

Not that God is unreasonable – but reason

in such excess was tyranny

and locked us into its own limits, a polished cell

reflecting our own faces. God lives

on the other side of that mirror,

but through the slit where the barrier doesn't

quite touch ground, manages still

to squeeze in – as filtered light,

splinters of fire, a strain of music heard

then lost, then heard again.