Two Midrashim

by Sandy Suppowit

Things Eve Learned from the Serpent
that skin can be shed,
and revision is always
possible; that each choice
has its own taste
and some are sharp
and biting, but palates
can be trained; that in a perfect
garden there is order,
but in wild places
there is growth, that one whole
woman is more wonderful
than half of any couple;
that even underfoot,
belly to the ground, even
with the bitterness of cold soil
in the stopped mouth,
there can be power;
that what you don't know
may not kill you, but it also
may not be worth
living for; that this world is bigger
than one garden, humanity
than one man, the future
than the past; that if you find yourself
in a story they will never stop
retelling, you might as well
have your name in the title.

Sandy Supowit's first collection of poetry, Halves of Necessity, was published in 1999. She will conduct a workshop on writing midrash at Brigid's Place on Saturday, May 5.

Eve Tells Her Granddaughters about the Tree

Colors were brighter then, newer, and at twilight when I walked alone through the garden, the crimson sky patterned the ground with red-gold bars between the long, black shadows of the tree trunks. It was a time of absolutes-light and darkness, good and evil, partnership and loneliness. I was already pregnant, my belly just beginning to swell like the fruit on the widespread branches all around me. She welcomed me with open arms, that tree, and every evening I would lean in close and we would whisper to each other. I would inhale the musky scent of her sappy bark and I would hear her gentle laughter in the leaves. We shared the secrets of our ripening. She was my best friend, my only friend, as Adam had become a distant, dutiful employee doing every task to tight-lipped perfection, joylessly. We had only three commandments then, and two of them concerned ruling and subduing, something Adam took very seriously. My job was done, as far as I was concerned, in just being fruitful. And so you see, that tree and I were kindred spirits-two quiet, brooding females singing in the deepening dusk, girlfriends.

Adam was content, I think, to continue in that garden forever because he didn't feel the thrill of change the way I did. It was a part of me the way it is a part of you, a part of all females, the way rising and falling is part of the ocean tides or the way the moon's face turns first toward us and then away. Change called to me in the song of that tree. I wanted to understand it and so I took that first bite, took it boldly and without hesitation, and I knew by the sharp sweetness that flooded my mouth that I had done a good thing, a natural thing, an honorable thing. I say the taste of that forbidden fruit was sharp because it cut through everything and made a great divide between before and after, between wondering and knowing, between the status quo and a hundred million possibilities. Adam never hesitated either, though he may say he did, but when he tasted what I gave him, his eyes did not go round with wonder as mine had done, no. His eyes squeezed shut and I saw the world's first tear fall even as he let out the breath he never knew he had been holding.

And one more thing-there never was a snake. Adam may have thought he saw one slithering away, but I believe that what he saw for the first time were those bars of brightness and shadow in the twilight like a prison door swinging open. There were only three of us-me, the man, the tree-and a distant sound like thunder, as Adam would say, like something heavy crashing down around us, or, as I remember it, applause.