In disbelief. Warmongering bleeds his vexed heart.
Rocking on his heels at the threshold of his lair
He curses and cries and has forgot where to start.
Stark, Stabbing pain and weariness and malcontent
Have him moan and shudder and he senses gooseflesh
And all he can smell right now is the acrid stench
Of keen pique. He cannot see why he should relent.
Thumb methodically pressed on nostril; just to snort
Clotted blood. Indeed he had to retaliate.
Why should they rot and welter in mire and mort
With nothing but cattle and grass to contemplate?
If he wanted to do them in, why take his time?
In the corner of his eye curls the pool of blood
Where his son had been split seconds before the crime –
Where his other son had received his life from God.
He felt sure he had always hated the first-born
Ever since he had obeyed and harvested corn.
Just to teach him they should have starved themselves to death –
Instead they had to suffer until their last breath.
What will she say? One son slain; the other outcast…
“It’s my fault!” or “It’s no use to dwell on the past.”
The man is still sitting on his heels, arms round knees;
His hands found no better use than rest on the ground.
He feels anchored down – one great, dark expanse to seize –
Riveted to the tarnished soil to which he’s bound.
His calves twitch, fibrillate. Treated like ravagers.
Why should they scrape dirt and gnaw bones like scavengers?
Were they just vermin slaughtering weaker vermin?
Had they all got to carve their way with a flint shin?
His chin covered with drool and tears and mud trembles;
His listless look gathers the vague plains silently,
Encompasses all: brook, tree, mountain and brambles –
And calls everything vain and blasphemes recklessly.
He feels old now, as old as the hills and dales green
That have in a way lost their lustre and their sheen
Since his sombre son sent to a darker kingdom
A brother; grim Death strikes soon and late, whole and dumb.
His stout son had been lagging behind in the filth;
God had made him proud and ruthless and exacting.
His arms and his tenacity had been his wealth,
But all was gone to ruin and dust, to nothing.
Why should they be tried, them who fell from Fortune’s law,
Wasn’t that enough? Isn’t the fine worth the flaw?
The furrow is now stained and doomed and essential.
Both lads are gone without a proper burial.
They had received their equal share of love and care;
They had been reared in fear of him who had made them,
But now he had to repent for the whole lot of them
And cries, envisioning the cross he has to bear.
Love was there, simple and strong; he’d come with preference
And instilled that great scourge hatred in his son’s heart
So that his other, dear son could feel the difference
And pay up the penalty for the parents’ part.
In the dark pit of the man’s stomach lurches doom.
He half-turns and discerns the cave’s end’s tepid gloom.
Dusk bathes the roof of the cave; soon she’ll arrive;
What can you say to her of whose sons Fates deprive?
There is no harsher word to express what he feels
But ‘unfair’. He suddenly outstretches his fists
Into the sky and with a stertorous voice hurls
‘Justice’ at the unseen one who always exists.
Skyward his grey silent gaze for a while remains –
These skies of feigned vastness until dusk unperturbed
Deepens his blood-dyed hands with crimson light reverbed –
His lips of ash are drawn. He thinks ideas are banes.
They have been created as things with a purpose,
But now even his eyes bear the pallor of death.
The lichen-coloured ground between his feet to Seth
Intended; why should his last son be judged thus?
His fingers claw the dust; nails grimy and broken;
Mud is but dust and tears. He must be that, not clay;
He must have been sprung from the purulence sunken
Deep into the bottomless shadows of decay.
His sons he has surrendered to conflict and pain;
His wife he has exposed to shame and sufferings;
He himself the opprobrious crossbearing stain.
Earth to toil and sky to rove as sole belongings.
Louring overhead the dome tinges with dark red.
She will come and lay in his bosom her frail head
And cry her life away. He foresees their future:
No more sons to raise, no further hope to nurture,
Nothing to avail them but the stone of their bed,
He comprehends and (prickling qualms) rues the rupture.
He has no means to understand his dead sons’ deeds,
Cannot satisfy him with his now empty creeds.
He must not ask of him faith or prayers or life,
He who has willingly steeped them in woe and strife.
No, no; not willingly. He’d given them the choice
And but one, unique catch thrown into the bargain.
But confusion came before they knew of its voice:
Now in their parched mouths the undying taste of sin.
“O my sons, why have you gone?
Why turn thy arms against thy brother?
I would have comforted thee,
Given thee recompense for thy efforts,
Given thee attention.
And you, murder’d son, I would have thanked thee
For having found the way to him.”
He had said the feeling would go, would wear off,
But he doesn’t want to feel otherwise.
Morn was gone for ever in his eyes
The very instant blood poured from the blessèd veins;
He grinds his teeth and clenches his fists in anger.
She will be here in a moment.
Sleep-laden limbs and eyes drowsy with lassitude.
How bitter shall the hundreds of years be for them,
To curse and to beg pardon.
The world is not big enough to wash the stain off,
To hide their shameful faces.
So they both shall remain in this forsaken place,
Them who imperfect could only harvest disgrace,
Them who shed tears of precise grief.
No one shall honour them,
No one shall know they died,
No one shall know they hide,
No one shall come to them
And ask for counsel grave
Or for absolution,
Them who failed to become
An impossible dream.
In the glowing distance a thin silhouette suddenly comes into view.
