What Did She Think, Our Mother?

What did she think
When she first heard
The first mother of man
That one son the other
Had slain?

Did she realize, this
First death, meant
No more presence of
The first born?  Those two,
Midrash recounts,

Were born in one hour
With no travail, erev shabbat,
A first, and last, painfree
Birth, the first, and last,
Born in the Garden.*

Had she before understood
Time, the irrevocable change
Of each second, minute, day,
Month, year, decade, and
That her begats begat in

Some fashion that first death,
The first account of time’s march,
And its hopes, and its decays?
Did she mourn? And if so,
For whom?

Did she speak to the 
One who slayed, but
Was still alive?

And how many myriads
Of mothers since have had
To grieve since that first
Mourning?
Are they less confused than
Our first mother mourning
The first son?

And why must this mourning 
Continue?  And when will it end?
And what can we do?

Only live, and hope, and love, 
And pray
And do the best we can to make
What we have, this spinning dust globe,
More like the garden in which
The mother of us all gave birth
To the first of us all.  

(*Sanhedrin 38b: an hour by hour account of Man’s first day, and last, day in Gan Eden)