Lilith in Poetry
Lilith
kicked myself out of paradise
left a hole in the morning
no note no goodbye
the man I lived with
was patient and hairy
he cared for the animals
worked late at night
planting vegetables
under the moon
sometimes he’d hold me
our long hair tangled
he kept me from rolling
off the planet
it was
always safe there
but safety
wasn’t enough. I kept nagging
pointing out flaws
in his logic
he carried a god
around in his pocket
consulted it like
a watch or an almanac
it always proved
I was wrong
two against one
isn’t fair! I cried
and stormed out of Eden
into history:
the Middle Ages
were sort of fun
they called me a witch
I kept dropping
in and out
of people’s sexual fantasies
now
I work in New Jersey
take art lessons
live with a cabdriver
he says: baby
what I like about you
is your sense of humor
sometimes
I cry in the bathroom
remembering Eden
and the man and the god
I couldn’t live with
Reprinted from Lilith and Her Demons (Cross-Cultural Communications, 1986).
The Passion of Lilith
On the other side from order,
the unintended bride,
one part gasp, one part express,
careless of symmetry, regardless of time…
What had the likes of me
to do with the likes of Adam?
Yet by after-whim
or black humor of Him
we were thrown together, clay
sun and glaze of moon—one
real garden with imaginary
goad—spitting image and spat upon—
Adam named and I with pseudonym:
man plus manifold, sure to explode
belief and make-believe
alike, alone.
Then Adam nearly drove me
mad—my original gaping
letter-man, docile as a stamp
and bland as logic,
flapping forever the divine right
of his real estate
at my obvious lack
of properties…
I tried at first to please,
opened my box of miracles for him;
he only wanted to hoe the peas.
He wanted his birds in his hand.
All mine gladly beat round the bush.
I wove an arbor, bindweed
and angels’ bane;
he wouldn’t enter in.
He wouldn’t lie under my crazy quilts
or improvise. He’d rather die.
He had the Word,
had it from on high, while I,
previous to alphabets, superfluous
as ampersand,
curled on chaos still, my edges blurred.
Gardens are made for orderers,
gardeners made to order,
but I am disorderable, the first trespasser.
So as Adam was carefully hedging
his
beÆtes and hugging the hedge,
and while angels were
warring and setting
God’s teeth on edge,
misfit and mislaid, I fled.
I gave a damn.
And I left my first love sucking
his green thumb.
This excerpt from The Passion of Lilith is reprinted from In Light of Genesis (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1980).
Lilith (For a Picture)
Of Adam’s first wife, Lilith, it is told
(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve)
That, ere the snake’s, her sweet tongue
could deceive,
And her enchanted hair was the first gold.
And still she sits, young while the earth
is old,
And, subtly of herself contemplative,
Draws men to watch the bright net she
can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
The rose and poppy are her flowers;
for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall
snare?
Lo! as that youth’s eyes burned at thine,
so went
Thy spell through him, and left his
straight neck bent,
And round his heart one strangling
golden hair.
(1868)