Chapter 25. The Garden of Eden.

March 25, 2019

Looking to the sky, he saw
The lead poured out by passing time –
Its azure tint had long since paled,
And left behind a scar, a line.

And so, approaching to the plum,
Julien with sorrow re-created,
From memory’s deepest, hidden vaults,
That very moment, long-awaited –
The day that bore his great invention,
This matter, wrought by inspiration –
That day had marked the true beginning
Of that endeavor men call “love.”

Some forty years had passed since then,
When trembling lips released the sound,
A fragrance of unbridled passion,
Upon a young actress’s ear –
He whispered boldly in her eyes:
“Love!”

Thus, feelings once concealed were freed,
With sweetness that was tinged by pain.
And hearing back a voice of answer,
So young, so trembling, and so true,
Julien, proclaiming rapture’s flame,
Became in wealth more rich, more blessed,
Than even Sardanapal’s throne.

In but a moment he had built
The city of his Eden fair,
Where first foundation stone was love.

To the next tree he slowly came,
And at its naked, lifeless crown,
He bent, and let his hand caress
The branches – dry, as if with blood,
A peach’s breath still faintly slept.
Beholding greyness, pierced with grief,
He thought of all the years long gone,
His youth, its heedless liberty…

“…With faltering and weary step,
Now silver-haired, old Julien
Entered the garden of his making,
Which he had wrought by his own hand.

Devoid of greenery and color,
Devoid of sweetness, fruits, and shade,
It was to every poet’s vision
A metaphor of time decayed.

For life condemns us all at last –
Bereft of leafy feelings bright,
We linger on the funeral’s verge,
Though souls remain, not yet denied.
But there is cause for no reproach –
This is the eve of spring’s rebirth,
Of liberation from the tragic
Sorrows seeded by winter’s dearth.

Here were no birds, no songs of joy,
Their singing silenced long ago.
The pleasures of our earthly life,
Whose blood runs slow, whose grave’s the end,
Descend through thorny paths of grief,
Till buried deep beneath the weight
Of earthly cares and mortal wounds.

The peach that once had gleamed with dawn,
That bore his native, golden hue,
Had lost its living copper glow –
Yet still the taste upon his tongue,
Of deeds once sweet, remained, unchanged.
Not even days like waves could wash
Those fruits of memory away…

And then he recollected darkness,
The very frame of his real life,
That hour when he had first been told
The bitter truth – a word: cancer.

Submission to the loss of life,
That thirty years ago was cast,
Had birthed in Julien’s weary soul
A chilling armor, thick and vast.
And yet a fragile spark endured –
A hope sustained by God alone,
It warmed him gently, day by day,
A light no death could overthrow.

And so, in prayers, through endless days,
Performing sacred ritual,
He healed himself with living words,
With bright, resplendent hope anew.
And for this healing and salvation,
And for God’s glory, silently,
He planted then another tree –
And named it Hope, eternally.

He stepped now to the third among them –
An apple tree of many years.
Upon its withered, ashen branches
He laid a kiss, so cold, severe.
With trembling hand, pale as the snow,
Recalling what had long since fled,
He combed the branches, tender, slow,
Though rough they were – like common folk,
Tormented by the thirst of power,
Denied all water’s saving gift,
Yet burning in desire’s fire,
To live, to grasp what life could give.

He thought of how he lived before,
Some twenty years now in the past –
Betrayed by all, confined, alone,
He counted minutes like the guard
That watches over fleeting time.
Accused of heavy, grievous sin,
Though evidence was thin, unjust –
Before the Highest, he stood clear.
All had turned away from him,
Save but one – his faithful wife,
Who still believed in him, sincere.

And time rolled on, and days rolled by –
Till proofs were found, till truth arose:
That he, accused, was innocent,
Unjustly shamed, yet never damned.
And from that trial, that deep despair,
He felt the strength of faith within.
He planted then the tree of Faith –
An apple tree, a living spring,
A source of life without illusion,
That bloomed on earth through faith alone.

And then he came unto the cypress,
That ten long years had greenly grown.
A tear he shed – so pure, so clear,
That even sunlight might have envied,
So radiant was its chaste repose.
It fell when his dear wife departed,
The gentle soul of purest grace.

He planted then the tree of Death,
Its evergreen a solemn lure,
Yet deader far than all the rest –
A shade more grey than leaden ash.
And this he named Resignation.

Then slowly, taking up his spade,
He wished to shape one final birth –
A last, great carnival of time,
Before his minutes ceased on earth.
His hands still moved, one final motion…
But then, exhausted, he collapsed.
What was the work he wished to fashion,
Amidst the mirrors of the past?

Through portraits of the long-departed,
Through images of years now gone,
His spirit wandered after death,
Among the souls with whom he’d lived.

And this, indeed, became the place –
The Eden garden he had built:
A paradise of recollection,
Where he could wander endlessly,
Among the green of ripened faith –
For those who trusted to the last.”