Redemption's Price

The knife sank deep And in a brother's heart the twisted blade went to sleep And I, the Adam there, Saw the things that fall apart through winter lids of tear You do not know How a parent can age in all the shrivelling squalor of grief You do not know When the child before the parent dies the struggle for relief. His flesh vomit His life blood out, and demons glee our destiny for the pit The proud eyes fall Away from oncoming faces inthe street, and crawl against the wall O bitter shame O perfidy of fault, the crumbling facade civility in debris strewn The guilty blame Against a sensitive mind, hacking, hacking, and hope is hewn. In the garden And there not for the living or the dead, but my own pardon This new Adam Read again, scrolling prayers against my pain, words like a dam Broken, floods of light A twisted right of passage out of sin: the shed blood for redemption Each broken flight Of grief in greater grief soars to hold the paradox of salvation. And I submitting Hug the survivor to my breast, one is better than right permitting Iron grips of loneliness My Abel dies, a sacrifice of restoration for all the wounded rest But you do not know How a parent can age in all the shrivelling squalor of grief O you do not know How love's forgiveness liberates from guilt and bring relief.