Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON 'EVE TEMPTED BY THE SERPENT' BY DEFENDENTE FERRARI, by ROBERT PINSKY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON 'EVE TEMPTED BY THE SERPENT' BY DEFENDENTE FERRARI, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Rare spirit remembered now with a pang
Last Line: Or easy but possible and we fall.
Subject(s): Adam & Eve; Bible; Jordan, Barbara (1936-1995); Temptation


Rare spirit remembered with a pang
Of half forgotten clarity or density
A quality, quilled, a learned freshness

Unshattered though not perfect not Eden
No rippled meander through new islands
The parentless leaves and branches tender

The green marsh the blue the white feet
Of our adolescent mother, myth of
Perfection painted just before unperfecting

Itself as if by impulse nor have we any idea
Where bright spirits are culled from, our
Admiration is a form of self exculpation--

Who is this strange bird we say as if that
Excellence were accident as in the documentary
About a guady parrot escapee from

Some domestic cage into azure margins
Of California with its green wing and crest
It joined a band of crows flew with them

Fed with them conducted itself as one brilliant
Crow accepted by them we prefer that to this other
Realized soul excellence eloquence made of our

Same eggs and flowers and waters plumed
As we are no scaly or feathered exception
Immune to that first of all Aprils where

The serpent spiraled in his tree petal-skinned
Has a man's head bignosed bearded
Stuck onto the tube of body already

Limbless old partner helpless knowing
Beholder leering full of our childish
Legend of our imperfection we fell

We fowl of a feather we feel we fail
And not that she made it look difficult
Or easy but possible and we fall





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