In the beginning, our beginning, we were only dust 
Knowing nothing of good and evil 
Only the pure innocence of God,
          In the garden 
         Alongside Creator
         The Birth-giver  
         Witness to Live begetting life. 

We were shameless—
         Known in our nakedness 
         freely creating,
         work was being human.  

Standing at the edge of Eden,
things were not the same,
Fragile, we needed protection
         and so we hid—
                behind trees
                behind one another
                behind our lives, 
       work was no longer about creating, but surviving.  

Individuated from God 
         We sought shelter from the pain
                of the memory of what we lost.    

But at the edge we stood, never alone
wrapped in a pale reflection of our former selves
      Would we know how to be man and woman again?
          Would we remember how to walk together 
                 with clear vision of each other—
                          as more than self-made image
                          but souls sheltered in the divine
                looking for the one who created and loved? 

From the garden I entered the wilderness of my striving
where I encountered demons,
          my demons,
          in the shifting sands,
     dirt between my toes, as a reminder of my mortality
                   to seek to fill the hunger
                   to remember who I was,
                   but really always forgetting
                   caught up in work 
                   or in another 
                   or in distractions.
         There were days when dreams became fantasy,
                   painting my self into corners
                   to connect with all those I loved
                   including a life, that I left behind—
           stretching myself across a canvas of memories  
                   the walking across a painted dessert 

         to look down from the highest cliff
         to hold kingdoms in my palm—
         temptation before me.
What they were for me they were for the Son of Man, 
         A deep growl in a hungry soul. 

Jesus came to face himself, and his frailty.
        He feasted on food made of words
        baked in the mouth of God

Words of life that promised another way

back to lush lands,
a place where we could hold hands
and be together,

with the One who never left us alone.