This could be Eden

Christian Century, August 1, 2001 by Walt McDonald

   So blue a jet would slice a contrail
   like a diamond, snapping the sky in half.
   Rocky mountains so green it seems

   they could never burn. Hard granite
   to hold the world together forever.
   From this, no one would guess

   a grizzly mangled a hiker at dawn,
   ripped off her face and chest,
   the raw heart stopped when they found her.

   Who could intuit lava underground,
   the bubbling rocks we walk on?
   On this calm day, who could imagine wars,

   heartache, or cancer, without telegrams
   or cell phones? Here on this
   almost perfect day, on the deck

   of a mountain cabin, we rock,
   talk softly although we haven't heard
   a door or seen another soul since dawn.

   Except for that tragic news report,
   this could be Eden.
   Except for grandchildren we adore,

   far off on the continent,
   in school by now, guards in the halls,
   classmates with books and satchels,

   some with dust coats
   over grudges no one knows,
   but burning to show the world.