According to the Midrash (Bereshit Rabba 22:28), Adam, saddened, met Cain who was full of joy:
“How did your judgement go?,” he asked.
“I did teshuva and everything turned out all right.”
“Such is the force of teshuva,” said Adam, beating his forehead, “And I, poor Adam, was not aware of it.”
* * *
What is the colour of the space between?
Sam Francis
In the end, it is all part of the “Great Cleansing.”
Shih-t’ao
not a question
of rising
neither sun
nor self
but remnants
glass
and could
*
for this our logic
how escape the
habit of time
*
reduction
to a barrier
an inability
to speak
origins
nameless as
if loving
*
defined by
the common
of things
and soon
no one
*
and what of joy
(but nouns
verb
past tense)
imagine
*
in the glass
know cold
not the white
of any eyes
these
swept beneath
the grey
could
*
the arrangement of bones
your glasses overturned
set before you
in the light
dry
certain
*
in back
of the knees
another beauty
straining
towards where
there is
*
the worst of it over
a smile
propped in a chair
*
climb down
and face it
the swing is empty
the days long
*
encased here
what seems indifferent
is separated by could
*
a featureless landscape
ravaged quietly (or not)
by a gentle corruption
soul
or self
*
flesh
the only capital
*
unlocking or low
so that
in that
could
(useless trying to make of words
make something of
not that this criticism is
any better or fulfills
perhaps the initial attempt
suffices futile
*
no guilt
or any other
sense
waiting for the rain
silently
blue blue blue
*
a bottle
of ink
*
not knowing what to
not any longer
it could be the mouth
minutes in
return for silence
remembering
behind this
a hand
behind that…
*
waiting
for the sky
to break
*
further
until finding ourselves
of evening
*
the light
still dependent
upon that
on which it falls
*
solace
in wonder
*
any portrait
these numbers
amount to
an elegy
*
wash away
these remnants
sight
and its corollaries
*
seeing that
with each day
distance
is that physical
between bodies
*
skeptic
until ruin
*
do not forgive
relieve this grace
without which life could
*
if only it were
simply a matter
of getting together
with a few friends
and shooting the shit
over a beer
*
by listening
nothing heard
which aches
promises
the point of bursting
*
after this
the unbearable echo
of what was
a step
*
the heave
something which might
but that’s another story
before confusion
an idea
the least of which
could
*
courage
in face of the quotidian
or perhaps
merely borne
by a life
not our own
*
could
from which
the only light
is absence
2000