the fall

I went to the park again today. I meandered, swinging my arms to move the blood into them, climbing rocks, stretching my legs. On the way back to work I took a path around a pond, which was covered with duck weed. The grey light on that perfectly flat green expanse made me want to walk out onto the surface of the pond, sliding my feet like a child on a polished floor. Where the ducks swam into the duckweed they cut tracks of open water, which languidly half-closed behind them.

At the edge of the water, in a place where the path came close, there was a group of mallards. They were digging for something under the water, sleek heads going under and the bright pearls of water running off their green necks when they came up for air. I stood watching them for a long time. It might not count as prayer, but God was apparent to me in the elegance of those birds, unconcerned with the future and perfectly at rest where they were. I think the “fall” that all religions seem concerned with comes from there, the recognition that animals occupy a state of grace that is alien to us.

Maybe the truth is that animals are still living in the Garden of Eden. The Fall happened when we forgot that we live there too.