Day 6 of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo 2020!  The prompt is to write an ekphrastic poem based on Hieronymous Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delight.  I elected to take the point of view of the artist or perhaps someone who is familiar with the thoughts behind such a painting and that it’s an allegory that must be read from left to right. 

Second Sight of the Garden of Earthly Delight
by Michael Doyle

There are so many perils in life's temptations
As I stare at triptych in contemplation
Bedeviled as it is with second sight
This Garden of Earthly Delight

In this panorama of paradise lost
We may take moral warning of the cost
Read from left to the right
We see Earth given Heaven's light

God waits His tiara in blessed serenity
Reflective of the Holy Trinity
Creating the Earth from His Word
His words command and it's already occurred

Free will was given to naked humanity
Who on lusting get hung on vanity
Shunning the influence of God for flesh
Mistakenly believing that we know best

Here in the center frame
We find our desires clearly to blame
All in a scene of sensory pleasure
All the secret sins each one treasures

How we love to stay and linger
As casted fate points her finger
We are trapped in moments of disruption
As we revel in this playground of corruption

Each of us noble savages in revelation
As the man clothed in piety judges civilization
Or rather, at how our civility is quickly lost
Without so much a consideration of what is lost

Woe are we who succumb to temptations
Only to reap our eternal damnation
Suddenly made aware of our depravity
We know remorse as we flee at last 
       
             ...begging salvation
                turned toward the Trinity

(c) April 6, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved