Voice from a Garden

Do you still hear the stinging voice

Of a brother’s blood from fallen soil?

Does each stalk still ring that choice?

Foul fertilizer for the fruit of your toil.

Have you hushed sin’s din by labor?

Have you snuffed its spite requited

On him whose bloody gift God favored?

Or comes sad voice, shrill, uninvited?

Does your view from East of Eden

Block grim image of that day

With callous hands you left him bleedin’,

But your conscience could not slay?

Will you not be reconciled?

Will your gift not be received,

When you come just as a child,

When with heart and soul you’ve grieved?

First-born of skin-clothed woman, turn

To second Adam of the race.

Receive the Gift you cannot earn,

Who kills the guilt and leaves no trace.