They stop in town
On the way to Halifax.
After a day on the road,
They want time with others,
A pleasant diversion,
Not expecting much.
The name of the place
Intrigues them:
The Paradise Club.
They sat at a corner table – astonished.
“Great to see you, folks,”
A general greeting that includes them,
Although they hug the fringe.
“A swell line-up of fun.”
Amplified sound
Thumps from a keyboard,
A quartet behind,
Mezzo at the mike.
“Whenever I’m alone,
I think of you, only you.”
They couldn’t settle back
In the noise and the dark.
Shafts of colored light stung their eyes.
“We’re out of place here,” he says.
“I know better ways to spend the time.”
“The children would like it,” she whispers
Close to his ear. “We’ll tell them.”
“Not much for us in this world any more.”
“Stand up and dance, folks.
Forget the troubles outside.”
“Who can do that?” he complains to himself as
His thoughts strains for a different milieu:
Sunbursts and a chorus of saints,
Incense to dapple the dome of heaven:
The hopes of joyful souls,
Of Adam, though exiled,
Reconsidering the past
As he worked the land
With hardened hands
And sweat-dimmed eyes
Talking with Eve at dusk,
Whose movements across their bower
Reminded him of dance.

“What was it God said to you?”
He asked for the hundredth time.
“My offspring will bruise the serpent’s head,”
She answered, resigned now, he noticed,
For it had been a trying year.
“Not Cain,” he mused. “He’s building another city.”

As he worked through their tangled history,
He moved toward believing that
His family would outlast him
And that the fragrance
Of bay-leaf and hawthorn,
Which he particularly missed
Weren’t gone for good
And that he’d hear the music of heaven,
Dulcimer, cymbal, and flute,
Harmonious voices,
Dancing all the while.

In the meantime –
“I think of you.”
Shifting bodies crowd the floor,
Not all of them young,
Believing they’ve found
A rhythm of their own.
“I don’t suppose you’d care to dance,” she says.
“Not in my old sneakers,” he grouses.
They remember their daughter,
Whose husband has left her,
A day’s journey away
And go outside to talk over
What they’ll say to console her.