Eve

Perhaps I did indulge the lad too much:
he was my first-born, first of all the world.
He grew. A little awkward, found life hard,
resentful, so in need of love, so cross
if ever he was forced to ask for help.

He hated it when his new brother came.
He felt dismissed, ignored, pushed to one side.
The babe was happy, placid, pleased with life.
Which didn’t help. And so it all began.

I thought that I would feel no greater grief
than when we lost the Garden. I was wrong:
for we lost both our boys in different ways,
in one cruel hour. God gathered to himself
one son, and barred the other from my sight:
the restless and unhappy one. My Cain.

Elizabeth Horrocks
 
If you have any thoughts on this poem, Elizabeth Horrocks would be pleased to hear them.