. . . His mouth rounded fleetingly for the h'wee-ee whistle-call, formed we-e-na in a sigh of breath as his hands spread the sky out; h'wee-wena, the bird .  .  .  . 
    A moment, and his eyes found it yellow on a pink-flowering spray: yellow and blues as the little wings spanned for flight, no more than the spread of his fingers. The spray dipped once and lifted, and was empty. More blue than yellow on the wing to his outstretched hand, the bird ringed his finger lightly to perch, his little head cocked, a bright eye watchful: and through its beak a wisp of pale stem. He had not seen the stem until now. 
    -Has the Lord God given it to you ? Adam said. 
    For meat, he supposed: and he watched, still, to see how it would eat such a thing. 
    -Eat then. Go on. 
    But it hopped on his finger to face the stream, the stem held as before. He lifted his hand and it flew off, swooping low over the water, two birds, a bird above and a bird beneath, wing tips meeting an instant briefly at the surface then apart: the gazelle's head and the leopard's lifted up, and the blue gone in high among the little leaves; the little top-most leaves that stood on the air, shot through with sunshine, and the blue between was sky blue ....

    Adam, moving upstream at a trot, the river on his left hand heard the leopard through a wall of rushes on his right: the crown of a sapling agitated violently above the tree-plumes. He broke through and came upon the leopard stripping the tender bark below with claw and fang, and tumbled it nose over tail in among the rushes laughing. Make way! Make way ! before it had properly turned at his coming. It struck out once and he caught and pinned it, fingers gripped deep in the fur. And then, loosing his hold, he crumpled its two ears in his hands until it rolled over and purred: and tiring of this, left it and went on alone. . . . 

    Adam had come walking with the presence of the Lord God.. . .
    In the dying light only the street of the than was certain, the thaneve where it lay gleaming: the river beautiful, and the darker mass of the trees over beyond it. Under the nearer trees also the shadows gathered, sealing up the garden in a mystery, holding its depths secret as the river did, and strange. 
    Somewhere behind Adam as he stood a creature called plaintively, which he could not name, riff-riff-riff  ...and was quiet. 
    He shifted a little and stood on one leg, aware of the night air on his body, and it was as if it had been himself calling, out of some mood that was neither cold nor hunger, nor thirsting, and had no name. Lord . . . Even before he whispered it, without knowing why he whispered, turning in the darkness to the presence of the Lord God, the thought came to him that he was alone. 
    -Elohim . . . ?
    -My son. 
    In the darkness Adam sighed, smiling, and rubbed the flesh of his arm. The stars came one by one to the surface of the river, and the pale moon floating. He moved his feet, glancing back towards the shelter of the forest; turned back a  little way, and hesitated. Will you come with me ? 
    -I am with you always. 
    He went on then in under the black branches, thrusting the boughs of them aside to pass through, stumbling among familiar things : ferncrunch underfoot and the dry bracken smell of it, smooth tree bole against his palms, and the rough kiss of the fronds. He smiled again at the startled hustlings his passage wakened close at hand, the companionship of small creatures scurrying and pattering out of his path. As his eyes grew accustomed to the want of light he went more surely, learning to distinguish shadow from shadow, and the deeper pools of the hollows before his foot trod into them. The furriness of catkins, brushing his arm, made him think of the leopard, and he stopped on the thought and drew a long breath to call it up, shattering the night. There was no answering call, and when he would have called again his jaw locked in a yawn. There was moonlight enough by now to show him he leaned on a bank tall with grass, in a grove. He yawned again, pressing his eyes, and surveyed it. There was a place under the bank itself where it was level, and he trod the grass down in a circle, kneeling to smooth it with his hands. 
    Before he was properly asleep the leopard came to him, coming through the night with no sound at all, he heard nothing. Lying on his back, he looked up and saw the amber eyes on the bank. A cloud passed across the moon, above the treetops, and he heard the leopard drop down. He felt the weight of it in the grass beside him. His outstretched hand told him of the comfortable purring through the warmth of fur, the claws that stretched out and withdrew softly, gently grazing his arm. 
 
 

I first read this wonderful story many years ago and it has stayed with me as a pool of calm and beauty ever since. Recently I visited a site which stirred up the same longings as this story fed so long ago, and heard of a man who is in many many ways calling back Eden for us all. There may be a way for us to live together, that is good for all of us.