EELS IN EDEN

According to Saramago
The Serra of Sinatra was Paradise
Before original sin
The moment before
The thunderbolt from God
Before the dire warnings
Before The Fall
This Eden in Portugal
Was a female one
The animal of temptation
Was the eel
Music was silence and
Miracle was sight

The chapel of San Mamede
Lovely sheltering name
Given to small mystery
A circular space symbol of divinity
This hermitage still stands
A place of dwelling more than a
Place of worship
Suitable for the cult
Of the goddess of the moon or sun
​-Teel Sale

Eels in the Garden - Paper mâché, wood, metal, acrylic paint

Women at the Pond - Paper mâché, plexiglass, eggs, acrylic paint

FEEDING EELS

Hidden in the Gardens of Chellah
Above the estuary
of the river Bou Regreg
Lies an abandoned Kasbah
And deeper in the ruins
Another garden
A secret garden
A walled
Pool
Where eels are fed
By childless women
Making offerings to eel guides
Pleas for fertility

ribbons of eels
untied by the tide

a welter of eels
shifting patterns in still water

eels wheel and whirl
rippling soundlessly
among broken egg shells
​-Teel Sale

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