Paradox would be impossible without language.
Your loving hatred and brutal kindness
would not confound, could I not speak of them.
The oxymora of reasoned passions would depart
with the sentences prescribing their banishment.

Until we stand tongueless in Gaza,
bereft of all our syllables, we needs must know
that into the garden with the Word crept the Lie,
and wrapped his sinuous coils
around that eternal tree.

August 15, 1997

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