A World in the Future

The Rise of the Good Garden

If I could spend the day with you in the Good Garden,
we would pick sun-kissed fruit and eat,
the juice dripping through our fingers,
down our forearms and
off our elbows for the ants to enjoy.
We would swim up waterfalls
to clean the sticky nectar off.
We would harvest leafy greens
and fleshy yellow vegetables for dinner.
We would sing praises to the Creator.
We would give names to another ten thousand insect species.
We would lie down with the wolf and the lamb,
and we would all rest well.
The leopard and goat would peacefully pause
under the olive tree.
The calf and the lion would go for a walk
with the first Child leading them.

The Fall

When it all began they were kept apart
But the most crafty and cagey creature
(for Goodness sake, why?)
took the good and stirred in the evil
Introduced Knowing right and wrong

That cunning creature asked
Really? Are you starving here? Don’t you get anything to eat?
No, I mean, yes, we eat. We eat
everything,
delicious, phenomenal
fruits and veggies…except…uh…
I mean…we don’t eat everything, exactly…
just…just not from that one tree in the middle…
Ahhh, they say that’s the best one.
No. I don’t think so. We’ll die if we eat.
Mwahahaha! Do you believe that lie?
Think for yourself. It will open your eyes. Be like Creator.

It does look delicious.

They ate.
They hid.
They hid their knowing.
They no longer knew only Good Garden.
They now also knew evil empire.
They spread their
knowledge
to the rest of us.
We hide.

But Goodness calls,

“Where are you?”

Back to the Garden

Sent out of the garden we
were, and now swords and hatred are
our life’s stock and stardust

Waiting for the Messiah we
were, but preying and cursing are
becoming golden

Where are we?
Why are
we caught
between heaven and being in
the
hell of murderers and monsters–the devil’s
friends…Us? But God had made a covenant. A bargain
as it were. Jesus came and
Back to the garden we
are being drawn. Jesus got
hung to
death to get
the garden restored–It’s not ourselves
getting us back.
The world now has an open invitation to
dine at the tree of Life in the
New Good Garden.

Inspiration this week came from a sermon I listened to by Brian Zahnd:

“Back to the Garden” is a golden shovel poem, based on lines from Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock.

Today is Day 178 of the Covid-19 time in Bahrain, Prompt #105 in The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. The prompt, by Marie Howe, is to imagine a world we really want.