On Genesis 3

On Genesis 3

McKinley Dirks

“The Garden of Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was.”
— King Solomon’s MinesWit

Upon looking at Catskill Mountains, Shandaken, N.Y. by Thomas Hiram Hotchkiss
With a line from Tolkien’s The Lost Road

You have superimposed the first Paradise
onto the Catskills, faded profile of hills raised
behind a plush foreground, sweeping grasses,
teardrop leaves and fanned blossoms of pink rust,

the dirt hardly visible beneath wispy brush,
summer yellow leaves, pale forget-me-nots
before there were weeds. The central tree
is wound with vines, a veil of the untended

unkempt, the Garden before an American
Adam was called forth to domesticate it.
Nothing lives here but plants. Beneath
these windless clouds you’ve tilled a world

uninhabitable for its perfection. Who would
trade such a peaceful view, a motionless
eternity for their own self-rule? Is it the difference
between being with God, flesh and favored,

and being like Him? Through vision, conjured
colors aren’t you a little like God, young
painter, creating the impression of light
on living things, separating shadows

beneath leaves. And if you had set down
your image here to live—with minds like yours
but lesser—what have you given them
to rebel against? Only the center of darkness,

eyeless soil, their beginning. Above all else
would they still desire to seek what has been
promised before it is given? Have you made
for your image a cage gilded to look like paradise?

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McKinley Dirks
Poet & Editor

McKinley received her B.A. in English from John Brown University. She delights in writing about the overlap of art and faith. Her poetry has been published in The Amethyst Review and Shards of Light.

Painting by Matt Barringer