When I learned of that bittersweet Paradise Lost

By God forsaken except to that nascent Adam and Eve

Learned I,

That traditions could be cherished without being fetishized,

and perhaps we are all angels though we know not whether we are fallen.

That I am sufficient to stand though free to fall,

and perhaps innocence, while sweet, is actually quite saccharine.

That happiness is always at arms reach,

and perhaps man’s folly is to climb when the sky rests at our feet.

That good and evil are cut from the same cloth,

and perhaps we are but to one industrious and the other timorous and slothful.

That incontentness is a cause, not a symptom,

and perhaps we hold too high the promise of progress.

But who am I

Heaven is for me too high to know what passes there.

Maybe I should end here

and perhaps be lowly wise.