“THE GREAT LACK OF OUR TIME IS THAT WE HAVE NO COMMANDING MYTH TO WHICH WE CAN GIVE ALLEGIANCE”

That Eve and Snake made brisk alliance

Was honest postlapsarian science,

Saying ‘Kindly do not label

The grand thing a fable.’

Nor was it mythically meant

That Atlas’ daughters wafted to the firmament,

Though in truth’s late avatar

There’s little stuff but helium in a star.

And Christ was fact, and so was Osiris.

Myth was, but never is.

Time was when gods were killed to foil starvation.

We have irrigation.

Are they too bleak, the bonds of nitrogen?

Our sons will sigh for time was when

An atom hung from every eave,

And men were happy, for they could believe.

[The quotation which furnishes the title of my poem comes from an essay by Babette Deutsch, but the thought is a commonplace of our times. Whatever may be the official pronunciation, here Osiris is to be spoken as a dactyl: OZZ-i-ris.]