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- ADAM
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- by Nicholas Biel
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- On the third day I was dust, ordinary common dust
- like you see on a country road in a dry spell,
- nothing expected of me,
- me expecting nothing neither.
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- On the sixth day he comes along and blows.
- "In my own image too", he says,
- like he was doing me a favor.
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- Sometimes I think if he'd waited a million years
- by then I'd been tired maybe being dust
- but after only two, three days,
- what can you expect? I wasn't used to being dust
- and he goes and makes me into Man.
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- He could see right away from the expression on my face
- I didn't like it so he's going to butter me up.
- He puts me in this garden only I don't butter.
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- He brings me all the animals I should give them names--
- What do I know of names? "Call it something," he says,
- "anything you want," so I make names up--lion, tiger,
- elephant, giraffe--crazy but that's what he wants.
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- I'm naming animals since 5 AM, in the evening I'm tired
- I go to bed early, in the morning I wake up,
- there she is sitting by a pool of water admiring herself.
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- "Hello, Adam," she says, "I'm your mate, I'm Eve."
- "Pleased to meet you," I tell her and we shake hands.
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- Actually I'm not pleased---from time immemorial nothing,
- now rush, rush, rush; two days ago I'm dust, yesterday
- all day I'm naming animals, today I got a mate already.
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- Also I didn't like the way she looked at me
- or at herself in the water.
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- Well, you know what happened, I don't have to tell you,
- there were all those fruit trees---she took a bite,
- I took a bite, the snake took a bite and quick like a flash---
- out of the garden.
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- Now I'm not complaining; After all, it's his garden,
- he don't want nobody eating his apples, that's his business.
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- What irritates me is the nerve of the guy.
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- I didn't ask him to make me even dust;
- he could have left me nothing like I was before--
- and such a fuss for one lousy little apple
- not even ripe (there wasn't much time from Creation,
- it was still Spring), I didn't ask for Cain, for Abel,
- I didn't ask for nothing, but anything goes wrong,
- who's to blame?....Sodom, Gomorrah, Babel, Ararat...
- me or my kids catch it,....fire, flood, pillar of salt.
- "Be patient," Eve said, "a little understanding. Look,
- he made it was his idea, it breaks down, so he'll fix it."
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- But I told him one day. "You're in too much of a hurry.
- In six days you make everything there is,
- you expect it to run smoothly? Something's always
- going to happen. If you'd a thought first,
- conceived a plan, consulted a specialist,
- you wouldn't have so much trouble all the time."
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- But you can't tell him nothing. He knows it all.
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- Like I say, he means well but he's a meddler and he's careless.
- He could have made that woman so she wouldn't bite no apple.
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- All right, all right, so what's done is done,
- but all the same, he should have known better,
- or at least he could have blown on other dust.
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