The Diary of Mary Magdalene: Poems from Christ's Wife

In the Beginning Was the Word

I walked out of the Garden alone, no moon light left on.

Abel's toil and Cain's trouble were far behind, I walked on.

In the sun, I burned, in the wastes, I starved, soil is hard to til.

Adam died early on, they say to Heaven he was taken, while

Samael had his grip on my heart, and Uriel drove her flaming

sword across the gates, saying "Eve, under duress, seek a hollow

place." My right rib redemption is Michael's greatest work, and

I found Christ nailed to a tree, a wicked branch, cursed and wood.

He became my comfort in desolation, as I raised eight sons and

daughters, salt and sweet, earth and rain, grow from the topsoil,

gather the herbs, sing songs to the angels that have fallen over you.

To know Adamah is to be clay, but to be a bone of regret, the Sin

of Satan, just an afterthought in Genesis when in truth I had the

world as my cup to drink from. I walked out of the Garden alone.

I was scarred, I was bruised, I was starving. Hunger for knowledge

turns the best of us into serpents, Hayah Havah, Chavah, Aya.

These words flow like water from my mouth as Seth grows bold.

Lilith talks to me by the Red Sea, sister, be evil. Samael talks to

me from the crook of the river, Eve, come back to me. And Adam

haunts the between spaces of my diary of birch bark, Eve, please

Come Home. Home. What a triptych of ruin. What an overgrown

Garden. I never existed, I never will be, and yet, I AM. I AM.

I AM. An elegy of felix culpa. One bone of curiousity, built

of leftover detritus that God thought not fit a human being.

I birthed legions and legends. I birthed the stars. I birthed sin.

And in my toil, in my knowing, sweet things came from the vine,

and where they tore me open, I planted seeds, now flowers grow

in my wounds, and I hath become my own Garden. My own delight!

We are not defined by our sorrow, but rather our laughter, and outside

the gates of Paradise, mirth at all that was, all that is, all that shall be

is the wine we drink, long before Sacraments and Temples were dreamt

of, when herbs and sheep and mazes of labyrinths of Elohim were just

the beginning, in the Beginning was the Word, and it loved, and she was

good.