My Atheist Weeps for Adam and Eve, by Suzanne Yuskiw

The Hand of God, by Auguste Rodin (France) 1896/1908

My Atheist Weeps for Adam and Eve
​
(upon seeing Rodin’s The Hand of God at the Met)
 
Born full grown in the curve
of each other and the great hand
that shelters, thrusts them into life,
cradled mid earth and heaven
before the conjuring breath of God
quickens and the green world calls,
 
a sweep of innocence, 
a spark from the hand,
boy and girl, they are flung into life
pure and naked in the joy of Eden.
 
(Were these your thoughts, 
my atheist lover, as you stood and wept, 
stood in awe and firm in heresy,
mourning the lost catechism of youth? 
 
The artist fashions beauty as a way to God.
Did God, too, make us, to carve truth,
beauty, love? Is heaven merely
a simple place where one can see
the other—naked, undefended, true?
Is that god enough for you?)
 
In that first pulse of time,
out of the void, a single light exploded,
infusing sparks of dust with potency.
And all was good, as God breathed life
into the quivering clay that claws its way
from earth to heaven.
 
In Eden then, the two lived quite alone
to walk the blissful garden
delighting in their solitary curve of love;
unshod, unclothed, and unashamed, calling
to each other from the hushed gold shade.
 
And God thought,
“It is good that I have carved them
in the palm of my hand,
charging them to make a garden
down the long millennia, carving out
the mysteries of stars and atoms,
life’s core, until the end of time.
 
But cutting through the pure white days,
there came the fall from grace, not sin
but doubt, clothed in fear, like past lovers
cowering in their separateness.
“Who told you you were naked!” thundered
God. Before the fall they had been one,
their legacy to us a sense of loss unending.
 
And you, my tearful lover, whose face
I carry all the day behind my eyes;
in the curve of whose hands I am complete;
for whom beauty is the only god;
let us create an Eden of truth and trust.
Let us not be clothed in fear or doubt.
I hold you in the curve of my heart.
The future calls.

Suzanne Yuskiw
​
Suzanne Yuskiw has taught English and Creative Writing in Virginia and Maryland, and has dabbled in confessional poetry for decades. Her other passion is writing and producing short plays in her current location of Aiken, South Carolina. She is often impressed by the profound psychological relevance of ancient texts and archetypes, finding them worthy subjects for modern poetry.