I.
Montauk, Long Island, Atlantic Terrace Motel
a shadow passed over in the morning mist
the angels the divas the spirits the sacred.
Snug in our bed a bottle of gin and Blake on the nightstand
we recited Walt Whitman
browning our bodies to perfection on the empty beach.
It seemed so simple in love with love.
Clever words sliced air like shining scimitars.
II.
When the shadow passed over the sun in the morning mist, there was a purple
chill in the air. I shivered and wrote a poem called After Eden unfinished thirty years.
III.
Dear Stephen Michael,
It felt like the shadow of a great wing, the wing of the Archangel Michael. I pictured Adam and Eve two frightened children driven from the Garden of Eden by the flaming sword forced to roam the world like orphans, to spend a lifetime wandering under the shadow of that wing. Never to be able to return. How after the gate was closed and locked, everything silver tarnished.
IV.
25 years later I stand by the gate.
The woman in Li Po’s poem waited year after year for her lover.
Extracts from the forthcoming book: Traveling, A Perspective
