Eden

In every place, and at all times, a Garden flowers forth.
It blooms and blossoms, heaving hearts and earth,
cracking concrete, splitting stones, and penetrating asphalt,
it pushes life through every fractured surface.

It is here in the city of rough rooftops
and hardscaped valley ways and
there, by the shadowy factory
coughing out steel-belted air,
soot-covering dreams and
weighing down old widow’s conversations.

It is in a field, on a farm,
where young lovers sow secrets and
where the fresh freshness of
sun-blessed growing things lingers
like the smell of baked brown bread.

It is in salt-sprayed cottages by the sea
where misty maidens mend nets and men
cast glances, reeling
at the thought of just one kiss.

Wherever young Adam greets Eve with gratitude,
delighted by the suitableness of this woman,
Wherever, Eve, with laughter, receives her Man,
there is the Garden—their Garden— and
no curse, no thistle, no felonious foe
can choke this saxifrage seed.

Somewhere, someone is falling in love
tonight for the very first time
and there—like a buried promise—Paradise stirs.

RDD
2/07