Banishment
Hand in hand they wandered,
seeking a door.
They had been told to leave the garden
and brightly fierce was the angel's desolate sword
reflecting naked sorrow.
Not knowing ought else better to do,
they followed simple tracks laid by animals,
which led from water-holes to fruit trees
and yet fruit tasted musty and sour
and leaves and roots were bitter now and water flat.
Night carnage fell down the valleys, so dour,
and crags loomed large and stones hurt their feet,
yet still could they never find Eden's exit gate,
as they had been instructed to do.
So still they stumble, blinkered, hand in hand, in paradise.
Clive Donovan has three poetry collections, The Taste of Glass [Cinnamon Press 2021], Wound Up With Love [Lapwing 2022] and Movement of People [Dempsey&Windle 2024] and is published in a wide variety of magazines including Acumen, Agenda, Amethyst Review, Crannog, Popshot, Prole and Stand. He lives in Totnes, Devon, UK. He was a Pushcart and Forward Prize nominee for 2022’s best individual poems.
Amethyst Review 