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This poem is taken from PN Review 20, Volume 7 Number 6, July - August 1981.

Witnesses Edgar Bowers

Adam

The shadow-tail, the cotton-tail, the jay,
The spider on her trembling web, the mote
Swimming my blood-all innocent, all true,
All unsuspecting! But someone was there.
The burden of the past and future, father
And child of choice, he offers count and name.
It is as though, beneath a foreign tree,
Gifted with tongues, familiar of the brute,
I made a garden, kissed a face, and died.
Children I might have had, remember me,
That, in your quiet house, your word emerge.

Eve

I wonder if the Lord who walked the earth
And spoke to us could be the thought I had
When, by the pool, I watched your face, and thought
The whole creation filled by what I saw;
Or he could be the dream-parent of thought,
...


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