William Baer, "Adam"

The second annual St. Robert Southwell Literary Workshop has been going on this week in the scenic and musically-named hamlet of Mahwah, New Jersey. To commemorate the occasion, here's a sonnet from the Wizard of the Workshop, the Master of Meter, the Emperor of Iambs, the Dean of Dactyls, the Father of Forms, the Sultan of the Sonnet, & c., Dr. William Baer.

Adam

He'd seen this thing before, of course, but never
like this. After Eden, he'd found a swan
lying motionless and silent, forever
rotting, irretrievable, and gone.
But now, it's his boy, the brother of Cain,
the shepherd son, the kind and faithful friend
of He-Who-Is, lying quiet and slain:
finished, futureless, at the end of his end.
Once, Adam had named the names, and named his own
two sons, and named this curse, which nullifies
and terminates, as: "death." But he who'd known
the awesome power of God looked to the skies,
knowing, without a doubt, though nothing was said,
his God both could and would undo the dead.

The poem is from "Borges" and Other Sonnets, as well as this here collection.