Cain's Gift
The blood cried up from the ground
and the air held its breath,
the earth’s sunset-stained
face now an epitaph
for Abel’s head and hands
thrust up from the grave,
that childish face profiled,
those hands clasped, a child
imagined by the sculptor
petitioning the God
who’d let the model murder
play out unimpeded.
From brother to his keeper
the singing from the sod
rose, a sunset lark
whose quavers left their mark
on Cain’s consciousness,
setting him aquiver
at walking the cooling face
of earth, banished forever
from
a period put to his chapter,
and from the good book hurled
out to beget the world.
Reprinted
from The Long Fault. Copyright © 2008 by Jay Rogoff.
.