My Childhood and The Fall from Grace

The History of Forgetting

Lawrence Raab

When Adam and Eve lived in the garden
they hadn't yet learned how to forget.
For them every day was the same day.
Flowers opened, then closed.
They went where the light told them to go.
They slept when it left, and did not dream.


What could they have remembered,
who had never been children? Sometimes
Adam felt a soreness in his side,
but if this was pain it didn't appear
to require a name, or suggest the idea
that anything else might be taken away.
The bright flowers unfolded,
swayed in the breeze.


It was the snake, of course, who knew
about the past—that such a place could exist.
He understood how people would yearn
for whatever they'd lost, and so to survive
they'd need to forget. Soon
the garden will be gone, the snake
thought, and in time God himself.


These were the last days—Adam and Eve
tending the luxurious plants, the snake
watching from above. He knew
what had to happen next, how persuasive
was the taste of that apple. And then
the history of forgetting would begin—
not at the moment of their leaving,
but the first time they looked back.




When I was a kid our main source of filmed entertainment was when someone (a relative, church group) sent us a VHS cassette or two full of whatever they happened to tape. Everything from "Old Yeller" to "Back to the Future" right off of HBO, from Southern Baptist sermons to "Green Acres" reruns, maybe even the occasional episode of "Thundercats" or - if I was really lucky - Silverhawks!


But one of the weirdest and most rewarding was a claymation video I've never heard anyone else anywhere mention called "The Adventures of Mark Twain." It's darker and more bizarre than more notorious kids' fare like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" or "The Dark Crystal." But like the man said, it's something rich and strange.


By far the most moving part is Twain's abridged retelling of the story of Adam and Eve from creation through expulsion and especially beyond. Here's where you can see a sample: this is part one, but of you have 20 minutes it's really worth watching.


http://www.vidoemo.com/yvideo.php?i=Tk1Jemh4cWuRpY1hueEE&adam-eve-1of3-the-adventures-of-mark-twain



The music is haunting and melancholy but also somehow comforting, and the images of the leaves/hearts/bookmarks has stuck with me for a long time. It's sad that almost any poetic or imaginative retelling of the Eden story always brings it to mind. 


If you can keep from getting a little choked up, I salute you. I'm fine, really - my contacts just dried out, no big deal.