With suffering shall you get your food from it

I love Garden of Eden poems. I think it's because Genesis is a really weird, difficult book and watching other people wrestle, work and present alternatives helps me in my attempt to deal with it. So having that as your subject matter starts you off on the right foot with me. Then this poem manages to both inhabit and transcend the subject matter.

Eve in Her Garden in This Vale of Tears

Biddy Jenkinson, translated by Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill

Accursed be the soil because of you.

With suffering shall you get your food from it

every day of your life.  ---Genesis 3:17

I spend a lot of time upon my knees
serving the earth.
I sow seeds in soil.
I arrange the roots of trees in rich peat moss.
I sing "sean-nos" in chorus with
vixens, donkeys, bees, hens,
children, ravens, cows...
I understand the why and wherefore of the worm's knot,
the warbling and the chuckling of birds.


Under my care
apples grow,
ears of oats turn blond,
hens go broody, cows seek the bull,
love puts down roots.


The drops on my brow
are sweated delight.
The child is worth the birth pang.
Life is worth its price.


I cancel out the curse of God,
defeat his greatest effort.
I grow posies of flowers
on the hobstone of hell.




It's almost enough to make me take up growing something, anything, in the ground. But I think instead I'll read some more poems about it.