It was a drizzly September morning a year ago, on the autumnal equinox. I was taking my morning walk along a nearby walking trail and absorbing the sights and sounds and smells of nature around me when I was struck by one of those “what if?” thoughts that sometimes inspires a line of thought that ends up as a piece of writing. (I wrote about the “what if?” approach to idea generation a couple of years ago.)
This line of thought took me way back to the creation story in the Old Testament Book of Genesis. It began with this question: What if God had chosen to put the Garden of Eden in the Missouri Ozarks? From there, my poem “Eden in the Ozarks” was born. It was published last April in The Argyle Literary Magazine, which, I’m sad to report, will cease publication after its next issue.
Since the equinox is now upon us, I thought it might make sense to share the poem here.
Eden in the Ozarks
by Andrew Careaga
What if God had chosen to put the Garden of Eden
“Eden in the Ozarks,” by Andrew Careaga, published in The Argyle Literary Magazine “Bucolia” issue, April 2026.
in these Missouri Ozarks. Would Adam and Eve
have used sycamore leaves to cover themselves?
Or catalpa leaves, big as catcher’s mitts? Or maybe
the heart-shaped redbud leaves?
These all thrive along the banks of these meandering spring-fed creeks.
If God had put the Garden of Eden
in the Missouri Ozarks, would the serpent
have been a copperhead? A water moccasin?
Would a pawpaw have been the forbidden fruit?
These are my thoughts today,
this first day of autumn.
On the autumnal equinox, everything
hangs in the balance, as it did in Eden of old.
The seasonal seesaw teeters
from warmth toward coolness as I walk
beneath a gray-streaked dome of sky. The sidewalk
damp from overnight rain,
splattered with the fallen leaves
of sycamores, catalpas, redbuds, and the others:
maples, hickories, black oak, white oak,
pin oak, dogwoods, mulberries. Yes,
my feet tread on the colors
of fallen creation, vibrant yet muted
By the wet. Orange leaves tinged
with scarlet or yellow green. Brown
leaves dark as chocolate.
The glories of a passing life.
I also walk along life to come.
Life contained within the dying,
flat, twisted catalpa pods,
the golf ball-sized hickory nuts,
their green shells turning
to shoe polish black.
These vessels hold seeds,
awaiting resurrection.
But God did not choose
to put Eden in the Ozarks.
God chose another place,
on the other side of the world,
where humans walked long before
any saw these ancient time-worn hills
and spider-vein rivulets.
And when humans finally arrived here,
those early sojourners, those banished ones,
did they marvel at the sight of it?
Did they wonder how they traveled so far for so long
to arrive at a place so distant from paradise?
Cover photo via Pexels.