by Chaia Kaplan

A girl just east of Eden
faced west with winged eye
and roamed around the honey
combing crevices of sky

“perhaps some place
- perched somewhere past
these frightful foreign flights
aloft, just west of Everplain,
a nestling in the heights…”

and at her westward window
(which she elbowed as she gazed)
her eyes upturned to paradise
an azure will to raise

so passing breeze took tawny sleeve
led her ledging on the wind
immeasurable vast distances
past paths of common men

her toe rings crowned the barren heads of arbor’s after green
her shadow overcast the cars that circled bout in strings
transcending touch of tainted earth
of machinated wares
- the facts and faxes, factories, turned fiction in her hair

beyond the building backs unbreakable
which harbored no remorse
she shunned and shone
un-mistakable - her righteousness
of course

onward Eden westward went she
eyes of wistful wing
past filthy fields of fallen dreams
to tidy yards of Evergreen

and her passion pawn for passing on
slipped her past the glaring swords
the revolving things that guard the lawns
at Eden’s supple shores

and fire feathered angels
turned blind of eye
as she came in
and westward went she far beyond the garden guardians

and there the juice of pomegrant crystallized upon her tongue
and there the down of a dozen doves softened round her thumb and there the answers allied all the questions of her mind
and there the paint of painlessness drenched her with a shine

but stirring like a fury from a forgotten fairy tale
a truth within her buried
bristled from its broken shell
“This is no place for anchoring
Come, westward wind,
Into my sail!”

and each blade of grass was brandished
for to fight for Eden’s pride
angelic hosts demanded
that she too must abide
and stay her feet to feast a while
on Eden nectar
– satisfied

“But I must go westward”
thought she still
“my sight has yet to reach
the outer edge of this insular isle
- Edens ridged western beach”

Beyond the plushing garden grass
The thornfree roses, easy paths
Beyond the beasts that bellow hymns
Beyond the tree’s seductive bend
She gazed beyond the best of them
And bounded on – just West of them -

And wind ran from her rebel’s feet
The sun blinked - startled - and the wise moon winked
All Thought was throttled, tumbled and brinked
splashed in vast puddle where the sunset sinks

beyond old rebuttal
beyond shattered sails
beyond logic and learning
and bread long gone stale
beyond light, blight or lesson
beyond legions of priests
beyond towertops and bottoms
beyond supernatural bounds and leaps

she bounded unbounded like a comet come home
for the sake of the wish of some gazer below
and westward and westward her vision overflowed
ushered on – by no one -
past Eden she rode

back to the bare backrooms of a world written wrong
the sky scraped by headphones
heavy metal bronzed

she came full sighted, silenced
through the thorns on the floor
past flower beds of thistles
up sharp stairs, and through the door

and saw a girl before a window
gazing westward quite amazed
- a front row seat set for her -
and Eden up upon the stage

draped in tapestries of textiles
metallic props and instruments
was a world enacting passions
with purposeful intents

the symphony of heaven
rose from a pitted place
Eden, but an expression
of an earthen tactile face

she stepped up to the window
and wrote the sky a new page
“Eden’s in the backyard,
for those who care to gaze…”