From RALPH ESTLING
In reply to AJ Baczkowski (Letters, 4 August) on the emphatically ennavelled
Adam and Eve who adorned the cover of your issue of 21 July, may I submit
the following thought:
Here’s a problem twice compounded: Was Adam’s abdomen nicely rounded?
Or cicatrix-pitted more or less With scar of an umbilicus?
If in God’s image, then Adam’s smooth stomach Harboured no hollow, hatchway,
or hummock, But if only in Man’s, then grotesque and gross Mayhap was Adam’s
omphalos.
And what of Eve? Do ribs imply A navel or no, and in either case why?
Artists cunningly hid their guess With aptly flowing auburn tress.
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Unhap’ly, with Adam dilemma remained, And stark and grim and puzzled
and pained They struggled to solve theology’s riddle Posed in Eden’s leafy
idyll.
Riddle there is, but answer I’ve none. Just as well my song is done.
Whate’er we think on whether they had ’em, Lie cryptic the craw of Eve and
Adam.
Ralph Estling
Ilminster, Somerset
