Bob Dylan In Search Of Eden (Part I)
by Larry Fyffe
God boots Adam and Eve from the earthly kingdom of innocence; locks them outside in kingdoms of experience. He’s not happy that the couple disobeyed His order to stay away from the Tree of Knowledge, and if it’s thought that they’re going to find a delightful places to live, the Almighty has news for them.
The kingdoms of experience will be found waiting but wanting:
The kingdoms of experience In the precious wind they rot While paupers change possessions Each one wishing for what the other has got (Bob Dylan: Gates Of Eden)
There’ll be never-ending struggles to control what’s out there in a hungry world. Darwinians fighting with Marxists, for example:
Relationships of ownership They whisper in the wings To those condemned to act accordingly And wait for succeeding kings (Bob Dylan: Gates Of Eden)
Not only that, God makes sure that on the outside of the Gates of Eden, Adam meets his always-complaining, screech owl-like previous partner who, like a gypsy, flees from the Garden of Eden because she’s had enough of acting the part of an obedient wife:
The screech owl also shall rest there And find for herself a place of rest (Isaiah 34: I4)
Lilith, Adam’s first wife, had expected to he treated as an equal in an Edenic relationship because no man’s rib was involved when God creates both sexes in His own image:
So God created man in his own image In the image of God created He him Male and female created He them (Genesis I: 27)
Time marches on, and Lilith’s now riding a motorcycle. No more an underling be she; the suited-up little boss man can go to Hell:
The motorcycle black Madonna Two-wheeled gypsy queen And her silver-studded phantom cause The gray flannel dwarf to scream (Bob Dylan: Gates Of Eden)
Seems the narrator’s girlfriend is the smart one – she’s got the mystery of human existence all figured out – it can’t be done:
At dawn my lover comes to me And tells me of her dreams With no attempts to shovel the glimpse Into the ditch of what each one means (Bob Dylan: Gates Of Eden)
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