Upon a day, before the world was lit,
above the mist, nightly combed by the corn,
wisping and coiling in a coral counterfeit,
expanding ghostly tendrils through the dawn,

I saw, far off, the drowsy mountains yawning,
where, with the growing light, walked Adam’s wife.
She was the inspiration of the morning
and suddenly creation came to life.

The dark-blue, eastern, loit’ring twilight fled
and in a rosy gown, the sun arose.
The loam-soft ground displayed her gentle tread
with lightly mapped impressions of her toes.

Weary birds of night, everything that slept
and all that had been still began to talk.
The mountain ice in noisy cascades wept
and Paradise was there where she did walk.

All hues of nature were mirrored in her eyes.
The shades of gold and wheat shone in her hair.
The moistened roses kissed her passing thighs
and she bejewelled the mist by being there.

The greatest painters in their museful prime
should all have been there that momentous day.
They could have filled the gallery of time
with works that would have kept man’s rage at bay!

O, that the great composers had been there
to symphonise and hymn that dazzling dame!
A bard for every fibre of her hair!
A sculptor for each movement of her frame!

But man had no enmity with death or dearth,
no love to lose, no borders to dispute,
so art was absent in a sinless earth
and knowledge was untasted, virgin fruit.

Consisder then, Columba, how I blazed
and burned with pity that this wasted maid
would grace a world of ignorance unpraised
and live unenlightened in her lover’s shade!

Consider how compassion swelled inside me
when Eve’s eye halted on the chastened tree
and how scribes ever since then have belied me!
I tell you: it was Eve who tempted me!

And next when God summons you to some crusade
you draw your Holy Sword to be at odds
with some poor foe, whose blood bepaints your blade
because he was akin to different gods,

consider how your own religion reads
that murder is a damnable offence,
yet lusts to kill all other human creeds
and for their blood to battle calls you hence.

Imagine too the innocence of Eve.
How could she please an impatient Creator
for ever as a trinket on his sleeve?
He would cast her off sooner or later.

Seeds which grow no loftier than seeds
repay the planter poorly for his toil.
Only those that rise above the weeds
replenish both the gardener and the soil.

So for the sake of Eve’s accomplishment
and for the life of Adam and his kind,
risking my own to save her banishment,
I planted fruits forbidden in her mind.

“Mother of All Living, divine your roots,”
I said, “and grow to heights in every land
like to this tree whose papers are its fruits
which you may ripen even in your hand.”

“This is the tree,” said Eve, “whose crop is sweet
but which the Lord has told us not to try.
We may not even touch its tempting meat
and in the day we eat thereof, we die!”

Then I stood boldly there in Eden’s midst
and said unto the girl, “You shall not die!
God made you for much more than to exist
merely as the apple of His ancient eye.

“Why did your Lord ignite your mortal fire,
tempt you with the fruits of deities,
forbid you to extinguish your desire
yet ask for loyalty and obsequys?

“Did He give you eyes for you to keep them shut?
Did He grow this mighty tree from tiny seed
only to have it ornament His plot?
If that’s what you believe, pay me no heed.”

I stood and smiled and held her gaze in mine
and saw such greatness in her lovely face,
it seemed her husnand’s rib had grown a spine
stronger than its maker, so to bear his race.

“Who is it speaks such pleasing words?” said Eve.
“Truly you have defined the very flame
that led me to this orchard to conceive.
You seem so worldly wise. What is your name?”

“You hear a host of voices far and wide.
I have more names than there are flimsy leaves
upon this tree of knowledge,” I replied,
“but all, if Eve so wishes, shall be Eve’s.”

The woman smiled and held me in her gaze
and in its depths a vision I discerned.
I was a serpent in her eye, ablaze:
the lust of all the world with which she burned.

“Take unto Adam all the leaves you need
for both of you to script your meditations.
Consume each other’s thoughts and let them breed.
So shall your race conceive its consummations.”

I tell you, proud Columba, Eve was grateful.
She gathered what her sturdy arms would span,
and yet, within the hour, she called me hateful
and said I had beguiled her and her man.

Whereat I was despised by all Creation.
Every living thing gave me its curse
with angry, soul-destroying condemnation,
dissonantly in discordant verse:

“All we had nurtured,
we placed in your trust,
here in this orchard,
to Eden’s disgust!
Laws of the universe
you have betrayed,
therefore Eve’s ruin
by you shall be paid!

“Be as a serpent
and sin be your seed!
Satan is rampant;
with him shall you breed!
Crawl there before us
as henceforth you must!
Plesiosaurus
abide in the dust!”

And instantly my voice was taken from me
else I should have sworn my innocence
and no presupposition could have harmed me
but not one living thing gave me the chance.

They would not hear me. They could only think
I was the enemy of the Creator.
They judged me evil and my spirit sank.
Creation pitied me not one iota.

For all the creatures that did roam the world
perceived me as the co-conspirator
of Lucifer and so I was exiled
to speak with mammoth, whale and dinosaur.

Faith, though it can charm, is deaf to truth
and anything not white it sees as black
and anywhere not north it calls the south
and treats the neutral like a heretic,

gives him white feathers for his ‘cowardice’,
calls him ‘traitor’, hates him more than foes.
Blind faith, festering with prejudice,
attempts at virtue while it crucifies!

Thus I was seen as something damnable
whenas in all sincerity, I was
Earth’s only lasting friend, not capable
of injuring man’s soul, as Satan is.

And, having been muted by the blind and deaf,
to Eve I gave my names as was my promise;
bequeathed her all my wiles to keep her safe,
that humankind from love would never famish.

The night dropped sadly on a tainted world.
The constellated cupola descended.
Forth from that owly, sacred place I crawled,
branded a beast and bestially wounded.

For never more could I converse with man
by rhymes and rhythmic music of the tongue,
and yet my voice became more genuine,
released from its servility to song.

Silently into mountain shade I crept,
thence into northern lowlands, cold with cloud.
Slowly I taught my language to adapt,
spoke with the creeping things and shared their food.