from ADAM AND CAIN
ADAM
I
Satan rises
in the shape of a snake,
slithers out onto a limb,
with grief on his face.
Will he speak in praise of the fruit?
In my dream,
he lay on the floor
in front of the throne,
ready to strike,
disgusted by gold.
I open my eyes,
In love with his sorrow.
XV
Fear?
I will tell you about fear,
Cain.
In the waste outside of Eden,
so close we could still see
the annihilating glory
of the cherub's face,
we sank exhausted
to our knees in the dust:
bone, brain, muscle, blood,
flesh
were one:
ice.
At dawn,
wakened by the prod of the sun,
I took your mother
in my arms
and said,
“The cobra curves up
out of his nest,
and, with his narrow spine
and neck,
lifts his face to light.
He knows no God.”
CAIN'S AGON WITH GOD
V
Why do you hunger
for the gifts of the dust?
Fruits, grains, beasts
Can mean nothing to You,
Immortal God,
You who walk in cool evening
to eat of the fruit
forbidden to us,
why should you care for the savor
of farm-gifts and hunt-flesh,
smoke of holocausts
rising, surging
over the altar,
filling your nostrils?
You who inhabit
the thinness of wind
and move from the heights
beyond the moon and the stars
the eye cannot reach
to rush to the earth
more quick than the eagle
who coil like a snake,
immense as the world
or gently as father
caressing Eve's flesh,
Why do You hunger
for the gifts of the dust?
.
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