It is interesting how a truth, like a baby, sometimes requires aging to reach its optimum effect – to become universal. My wife is Persian (Iranian) so we have been following the Women Life Freedom movement with great interest, watching the light of women’s freedom in Iran catch fire in an unprecedented global response. It seems to me that we are witnessing the birth of something that is not simply a response to forty-three years of gender apartheid, the suppression of women in particular, in Iran. It appears to have taken on the character of an indicator of maturity in the human race – one that has taken thousands of years to reach the moment when, emancipated and triumphant, it takes flight. It reminds me of this long cherished poem by a dear friend, Roger White.
EDEN, AND ALL THAT
By Roger White
In truth I was bored
in the genial garden,
longed for something more ribald
than my tranquil lot
(I, the one-rib wonder)
and found Adam damnably dull,
excessively affable and mild.
And besides, he snored. I thought:
how dreary to be incapable of blunder!
All that endless innocence
was terribly wearing
and the chatter of the animals
quite drove me wild.
Just what do you say
to an amiable elephant, or a gruff? Tearing
about in the buff –
a decorative pastime this, and no disgrace –
did not for long amuse.
I tired of bland witlessness. Enough!
I dreamed of choices,
fancied high-heeled shoes,
a touch of lace and other voices.
So I began to plot. What had I
to lose save choicelessness?
Too much euphoric contentment
can give a girl the blues for
virtue unexercised smells of rot.
I imagined another arrangement,
conceived how I might conceive a child.
Adam (I told myself to justify my plan)
might like a son or several. So then
I talked it over with The Man.
You found the courage after all, he grinned.
We’ll call the game ‘The Fall’. Of course
you’ll bear the blame, they’ll say you sinned
when the story’s told. I have my reputation
to uphold, after all, so you’re the one.
Go to it girl, let’s start the fun.
Persuading the stupid snake
to play bent tempter didn’t take
much doing – I owed it to the legend – and
he, like Adam, wasn’t very bright.
Once I’d lured my husband to the spot,
displayed the red and luscious sphere
and spoke of knowledge being power he
overcame his fear in that fraught hour
and was quick to take a bite.
That done, I knew the course was clear:
expulsion with fig leaves, and eternal shame.
The Man winked and I almost giggled
when Adam asked, What have we done, my dear?
but he didn’t guess the game.
To calm him I looked coy and shyly pouted,
stuck out my curvaceous hips and wriggled
(I sensor what he shouted) but then
Adam, unprotesting, made his first free choice;
the result was so arresting that
admittedly it caused me to rejoice.
The rest is known, of course,
but let me say
my scheme is still unfolding;
bear with me girls, I’ll have my way.
Meanwhile Adam, still a pompous bore
(but growing lovable
and ever eager for my kiss)
records the history woven from my myths,
and boasts and brags and plays at war
and doesn’t know my plan to bring
a willed and chosen peace to all my sons,
in time, in time. That was my vow
in Eden. Not the lobotomized trance
of that pallid place but a greater thing.
I swear there’ll be a silencing of guns;
I pledge new wine, new song, and dance.
As things seem now
I’ve not much improved my station
but I mark small gains
and patience is my strength.
I’ll lead my children to elation
at length, my dears, at length,
as grain by grain a coast or
desert’s moved. Ah, not for all
Adam’s ribs or knowledge would I exchange
my thorny wisdom,
my spirit’s luminous pains.
