Abel

The gift became the sacrifice
and good became the gratitude –
a first repurposing.

But I was lost, the first to die,
(and all your loss and all that you must lose
are lost in me)
my substance drained, and so

what legacy have you in me –
or I in you? I can bequeath
only my name –

a cage for meaning. If I have
breathed out anything then it is not
a name but something which exists
uncaged. The darkness

is immured within the light
and time sword cut –

What says the preacher now?
Be careful how you acquiesce
in these notions of vanity.

Included in Poems 3.

Hebel is a Hebrew word that appears in the book of Ecclesiastes and in the AV it is famously translated as ‘vanity’. The name of Abel, the murdered brother of Cain, seems to be the same word.