Poetry Break: "Paradise Gainsaid"

Apfelwein

Die Eva hat im Paradies wie wir alle wissen

Schonmal kräftig in einen Apfel reingebissen;

Irgendwann fand ein Hesse wohl heraus

Man presst die Äpfel besser aus,

Die Brühe vergärt wie ist das fein

so nach und nach zu Apfelwein.

(German Poem from BBC; Image from Wikipedia)

(Image by: "EvaK (Eva Kröcher) / evak_nospam (at) ekks.org")

After my Christmas greeting to all, I wrote the poem below to give to my wife for an additional Yuletide present. Actually, it's intended as a poem from the fallen Adam to his postlapsarian Eve, written as a gift for their declining years:

Paradise Gainsaid

There is a garden in thy grace
Where trees of lively knowledge grow,
An earthy paradise to face
The harvest fruits of all our woe.
Here apples ferment, by and by,
Till tears of Apfelwein we cry,

If cry we must, when eyes disclose
That occidental sun aglow
Decline toward that which never shows
Its face though faced with that flambeaux.
Yet face it must we, by the bye,
Till tears of Apfelwein we cry.

Yet in this earthy garden still,
How statue-like I see thee stand
To counter time that comes to kill
All thou attempt with eye or hand,
From sacred apples' last good-bye
Till tears of Apfelwein we cry.

My wife liked these lines but observed, "It's a sad poem." I disagreed, in part, objecting that it's more stoical than sad. She considered this and nodded . . . though perhaps merely out of courtesy.

By the way, I allude to three other poems, at least, but leave to readers the task of identifying which three.