Adam

The Feast of Christ the King is this Sunday: the end of the year, the longing look forward to the end of all things. I’ve been focused on poetry for Advent, writing songs from people looking for the coming of Christ. This has meant a lot of songs about death. It’s been a bit of a memento mori. I know Advent doesn’t start for another week-and-a-half (oh, just writing that makes me panic about the holidays), but I’m going to start posting my Advent poems today. Advent is, after all, all about waiting for Christ the King, and we’re doing that all the time. Here is Adam:

  Do you recall how we got here?
 if we turned left or right
 out of the garden?  Every year
 it's fainter to my sight.
 I always thought it would stay clear--
 our Eden, drenched in light--
 but I'm the first old man, my dear,
 and fading into night.
  
 If you remember, tell the boys;
 but if not, never mind.
 It was our paradise, our choice,
 and not for them to find.
 Theirs is the world of our disjoints,
 our garden left behind.
 But still there's reason to rejoice,
 though earth is so unkind.
 
  Gardens still bloom, and men still love,
 though some men lust and kill.
 And God still walks in shaded groves
 and speaks aloud his will.
 Someday we will go back there, Eve,
 when all has been fulfilled,
 to see the flaming sword removed
 and Abel living still.