I wrote this poem as I felt the pull of life and death in my own heart, a meditation on the two trees in the Garden of Eden.
The Scales
Where ignorance should plead in my defense
I judge by sight and taste and green desire
And on that bench cast off my innocence
As if, by stature, I should reach the higher
To vainly pluck fruit from this deathly tree;
Deciding between death and sweeter death
Though death with life will ever disagree
And every verdict circumscribe my breath.
The scales, when laid with dust, will always rise
When glory weights the balance on your side.
Though double knowledge dims my fleshly eyes
Your pardon, won by death, my death denied.
Now, from the tree of life, you freely give
So dust, in you, might somehow rise to live.
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