Expulsion: A Meditation on Marc Chagall’s Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

On a hill in Oklahoma there sat a swell of wind, breathing long enough to consume the last ten years of time into its gust. In this moving air, swirling and spaciously confined like a tornado, I looked through the window and saw it--saw the swell of wind breathing time into its midst, and I went out and walked toward it. I felt timeless as I went. The woods were still and lacked its colorful chatter. The sun shown palely through a film of clouds but the clouds were fixed. It was the hollow month of March, hollow, and hallowed, with ground still brittle from an icy winter and trees still naked from hibernation although the redbud trees were subtly showing their felt blossoms. A titmouse whistled: "Peter Peter! Peter Peter!" It was the only sound I heard.On the hill, the swell of wind engulfed me and I saw its cargo appear in images as faint and quick as steam but as definite and true as stone. The last ten years of time wrapped up in wind, unmeasured, performed a dance, marched a parade, endured a funeral, sang a dirge, and shouted a hymn all at once and yet all so separately I could experience each of them without even trying. I saw everyone grow up and leave, including myself. I saw a river and a mountain and tumbling rocks. I saw thrills of hope followed by scourges of pain followed by periods of healing. The last ten years, an indiscriminate cinema. But the swell of wind didn't say anything. I stepped out of it, back into the colorful chatter of the woods and back up to my window where the sight of it had vanished. Had I seen it to begin with?