Eve sat by the river

“My heart is breaking,”
Eve wrote her sister
Lilith, Adam’s first wife,
residing in the land of Cush.
Eve scribbled the words
with the ink of her tears.
“My son has murdered my son,
and the murderer is a ghost
haunting the valleys
and the rivers between
the two of us, you and me.”

Eve sat by the river
mourning her baby child,
mourning her first born man.
Eve sat by the river,
the blues in her eyes shedding
one hundred forty-six tears each day
‘tween the sunrise and the moon.
“River, my heart is bleeding,”
she sang, her grief rising
like smoke up to the ears of God
while the clock kept faith with time.

Eve went down to kneel
in the church down by the river Cry.
She lit a votive candle
and prayed the rosary
one hundred and fifty times
for the souls of her sons.
For the one whose life was taken away,
and the one who took the life
she prayed.