Where Are You?

by Phillip Aijian

Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise
Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise, Paul Gustave Doré

Genesis 3:9

And so begins the odd phenomenon
of God asking questions that, clearly, he
always had answers to.  But he goes on—
as if his call to them might merely be

to pass the time or to disguise his grief—
like a variation of hide-and-seek
might supply him with a moment’s relief
from the subject whose prospect was too bleak:

unhidden disobedience.  All seen
even before her fingers grasped the skin,
before the honeyed words that passed between
the two and two; the dooming of our kin.

He saw the very moment when—if sight
correctly names perceiving their demise—
preference in the will bent left or right.
As if a tree, despairing of the skies

forsook the sun to taste the lesser light
of nearby fire.  Curving by degrees
it surrenders to the lifeless delight
of hissing flame.  And though with smoke it pleas,

perhaps, to be withdrawn, we know its veins
forever closed and leaves forever brown.
New-burned by shame, with Eve Adam disdains
the garden for his shade.  And with a frown,

with a stilling of breath, he turns his face
as if to hide—now such common recourse—
as if by hiding they might so erase
the spirit’s darker fact.  And with what force

they strove to bury the burning knowledge:
even as God humbles himself to call,
husband and wife begin to blame and hedge,
growing more immune to the rise and fall

of their own hearts voicing prosecutions.
Perhaps the incarnation begins here—
as God submits to their diminutions,
asking permission to enter their fear.


Phillip Aijian is a writer, artist, and educator. He earned a PhD in Renaissance drama and theology from the University of California at Irvine as well as an MA in poetry from the University of Missouri. He lives in California with his wife and children. His chapbook, Homeless God, is available through Californios Press.