Through the soft rolling hills of a quiet lush field,
The breeze carried the scent of lilac in the air,
Those pale, purple flowers upon which I longingly gazed,
Were placed in the waves of her braided blonde hair

We feasted upon daily, the fruits of the land
And passed the day humming a harmonized tune
We slept in the fields, where evil had no home,
And drifted off under the eye of the moon

Until one day the breeze died down
And the lilac scent grew weak,
She became the first to wonder
And first desired to seek

Heaven’s water flooded the fields
Burying the flora in a grave of sod,
Abandoned us, had the eye of the moon,
Our life seemingly ruled by an angry god

We decided we must go someplace else
Settle down to another blissful home,
So we left the hills with only linen on our shoulders,
And sought out a utopia; that great unknown

The hot, heavy sun hit our necks without mercy
As we trudged endlessly through that unripe land
The only beauty there lay in her unmolested cheek,
When she pressed to it my calloused hand

The emptiness of our guts was an unbearable pain
I looked over and saw misery in her eye
How could I fail so horribly, to keep her from want?
I couldn’t stop her tears, her hurt refusing to subside

One day we came upon a gravely wounded bird
After days of feasting on air, we rushed to the creature’s side
I mournfully brandished my knife up high
And ****** down and held it there, till the bird had died

O’ cruel fates! What a trick you did play upon us!
Our lost innocence from that ****** was no small sacrifice
The irony there is but a horrible joke,
That there had to of been death, to give us sweet life

She ate its heart, and I its brain
And after, the rosiness returned to her cheek
A state of shudder-inducing blushing I’d so missed
I trembled with joy and felt my knees go weak

T’was a couple days later, and we’d found another creature
A squirrel caught napping up in its tree
The deed was done, and we’d just begun to feed
While a shadow silently slithered and stuck a knife to the back of me

All my muscles then clenched, I dared not to breathe
She tried to help by disarming the man
He slashed at her violently, wounding her cheek
Then through her cries, grabbed our meat and ran

Over the starving weeks, her cheek did heal
And memorialized in her skin with a scar
Was a realization of the brutality of the world
Leaving our fragile psyche’s permanently marred

The incident damaged me less than it did her,
She couldn’t seem to move on
“It’s so hard to get up in the morning.” she sighed
Her lust for life had gone

The grey cloud took over her brain
And one day to me she said
“Perhaps the bird and the squirrel were the lucky ones,
And you and I’d be better off dead.”

I pleaded with her to keep going on
Life without her would be too great a pain
I begged on my knees to no avail
She said “I must cast off this mortal chain.”

The next day I awoke to find her dress, like a rope around her neck
The other end, tautly tied, around a branch of a weeping willow
With blurred vision I got her down, my tears fell on her cheek
I laid her head down on my lap; t’was her final resting pillow

I buried her in a hand-dug grave
And left the next day at dawn
I marched on to find a new home
To distract from the fact she was gone
  
Trudging along, alone with my thoughts,
To converse with there was no one else
After a while, the guilt had fully come
Because there was no one to blame but myself

On rolls in the grey cloud
My once calm sea grew rough
And the same question arose, again and again
Had I done enough?

I no longer bothered to search for food
I soon stopped drinking my water
I walked for days, without any purpose
It was like leading a lamb to slaughter

On the third day of this
My body gave up and quit
I collapsed in the field and waited for the end
I felt body and conscious split

I had a vision of a speck of light
That grew bigger and brighter by the second
Then with a flash appeared a beautiful angel
Whom to me she beckoned

I awoke from the darkness in a cave
In its mouth stood the fair woman
It tore at my heart to see such loveliness
That I thought she mustn’t have been human

Her long brown locks intricately braided,
Ran down the length of her spine
With skin as smooth as porcelain
I longed for her to be mine

She tilted my head back
And poured down my throat water so pure
She fed me fresh fruits and savory stew
Till my shaking hands were sure

She asked me of my past
I told her of the trip
She asked about my companion
It was then that I bit my lip

The gates swung open, out came everything
And by the end she saw a broken man
I told her I didn’t think I could continue to go on
She replied “My love, let me show you that you can.”

Over time she took my body and soul
And brought them back to health
Just let me say that a well man
Is worth all of the world’s vast wealth

She helped me find some purpose in life,
The meaning of it all without my darling
And in the process I found my heart
Belonged to her now, my precious starling

She spends the day foraging for fruits
And I hunting animals for meat
We drift off at night in the cave
Together we lie while we sleep

It’s not a new perfect Eden
But my love of life and happiness there do grow
For I once again, smell that lilac scent,
And can bask in its fragrant glow.