for Diane Ravitch
If a fairy tale begins with a prohibition, you know it’s going to be broken .
The Word was charged anew with the grandeur of Gerald
Hopkins’s bold bald conjugal rhythms that sprang so
springingly sprung across the page and marveling mind
like one of those flowers–noli me tangere—that blows then bursts
raining, dappled, down such confettilike windfall seedpod
images that one might drown in their festive falling,
so scattering round about in lambent Monet-made lily-light
as to make one wonder, bebrindled, seduced, fallen again,
whether to win such a world were worth the fell first fall
after all. Our first father’s, mother’s Eden lost to gain
another. If this be sin, go and sin some more, beautiful brother.
Copyright 2020, Robert D. Shepherd. All rights reserved. For more poetry by Bob Shepherd, go here: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/category/poetry/
