Adam

Eve has gone absent

Adam footloose and angry

unable to return to paradise

tours the world where

he sees  and tastes

new and different apples

from trees without snakes

 

Eve

Finally released from paradise

which was becoming claustrophobic

with all that intense vegetation

to say nothing of the ground crawlers

planning now to get a MBA

since her talent seems to be arbitration.

 

LAST SUPPER

The press reported it as an

all male invitation only

dinner party for 12 on Mount Zion

the one heavy with silver

may have picked-up the check

while another dozed from too much  wine.

Women were certainly there or nearby

probably Martha, a couple of Mary’s and a Sarah

preparing the feast

decanting the wine

folding the linen and lighting the candles.

not unlike a modern day dinner party.

 

LILITH

Needing to fly away

as a force of dust with

a streak of light

Without tears

before the birth of day

past the black hills

Settled near the red sea

a scared space where

screech owls could rest

First wife of Adam

when Lilith defied him

God made Eve.

Back to beyond

and beyond

the beyond.

 

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Painter & Poet, Peg McAulay Byrd was born and educated in New York City, before ultimately residing in New Jersey.  She has been an adjunct professor with the Drew University Art Department and previously taught at the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts, The Newark Museum, and The Printmaking Council of New Jersey. Byrd’s paintings and prints offer very personal insights about her response to striking and unusual subjects. Combining formal elements of wide-open silhouettes with serene expressionism, Byrd creates lyrical abstractions of ancient terrain. .

Byrd has been part of many exhibitions including in Belgium, Canada, France, Japan, and extensively in the United States.  Her work has been included in several museums, corporate, and private collections. including:  New Jersey State Museum, the Monmouth Museum,  the Newark Museum, and  the Musee de Pont-Aven, France.  In 1987 she received the Master Teachers Fellowship Award from the National Endowment for the Arts through the Vermont Studio Center.