CURSE

On the day you eat of it,
you will surely die.

The serpent slides, humbled, belly pressed to dust.
Upright no more, its hiss an echo of a former song.
The yielding earth hardens beneath the weight of fall.
Waters recede, rivers wander, rocks crumble, dust rises.
Thorns and thistles break the soil, as creation groans.
The garden bows, bent beneath burden,
yet no curse falls upon humanity.

Judgment waits, held back by promise,
mercy hidden within the sentence.

Serpent and soil bear the verdict, all creation its weight.
But the expected word does not come.
The silence is heavy, the curse reigns, silent and unyielding,
for now.

Something has been withheld.