the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.
—Lehi to his son Jacob (2 Nephi 2:15)

Daddy perched me on top of a pillar on Main
to identify the make of passing autos.
I knew the pre- and post-war models, names
that pricked the tongue—Packard and Desoto,
the Nash Metropolitan, the Willys Aero.
It was the Fifties. Knowledge had uses. He
wagered on me, on his little hero’s
delight in words, changeable for money.

Eve, answer me this: why do we quit dull
Paradises to hazard losing and dying?
Didn’t you ask Father to give you wings,
to throw you skyward and catch you falling, to swing
you by the hands to feel the fearful double
force: the cling of love, the pull of flying?

 

J. S. Absher

 

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