You said the ground would feed us

Green from the dust we were torn from

Seed & stalk, fruit & herb

For breath, for blood, for bone

You said the beasts were not our meat,

But placed beneath our care.

Silent eyes, entrusted lives

Not ours to break or spare.

So I learned the weight of seasons

The patience of the soil

I bent my back to lawful things

And sanctified my toil

I worked my land as had been spoken

I worked the pattern with my hands

If the world was shaped by words

I didn’t fail, I kept your plans

But your words won’t settle now

They turn & scrape my mind

Like stones that will not stack

Like furrows misaligned

I did what I was told

I brought what I was given

You spoke, & I kept the order

You named the ground, & I listened

The ground remembers

Look what remains

If this was not enough

Then tell me where I failed

There came a day our father named

A threshold we must cross

No longer children of the garden

But counted in its lost

An offering — not for hunger

Not for sun or rain

But to be seen by you, and swear to you

To be of your domain.

I brought the yield of ordered ground

My toil in sun & rain

What hands may make by waiting long

What law allows to grow from pain

My brother came with living breath

Still warm against his chest

The first that fell from open womb

The beast of sin he called his best

No thunder spoke. No fire fell

No word was said aloud

Only time & what it gave

And what it disallowed

I did what I was told

I brought what I was given

You spoke, & I kept the order

You named the ground, & I listened

The ground remembers

Look what remains

If this was not enough

Then tell me where I failed

His fields are full without his care

His children laugh with ease

His name is light upon their tongues

A blessing on the breeze

My grain thins out, The ground resists

The seasons drag their feet

I work the days you gave to me

And starve beside my wheat

Mother smiles when Abel speaks

Father listens close

While I'm the one who gets their sighs

The burden to diagnose

He thanks you like the sky is free

I beg you just for debt

You answer him with open hands

You answer me “not yet”

Did I miss hear you in the beginning?

Did Your word decay with age?

Or does obedience mean nothing

Once chance has set the stage?

I did what I was told

I brought what I was given

You spoke, & I kept the order

You named the ground, & I listened

The ground remembers

Look what remains

If this was not enough

Then tell me where I failed

He does not ask why fortune comes

He doesn’t test its cost

He walks as if the world was kind

Like nothing has been lost

And I — I count, I weigh.

I find each fault in law.

If this is what your favor means,

Then what is justice for?

You speak to me of crouching sin

As if I invited it in

I followed til these cracks appeared

I thought my faith would win!

If blood is louder than the ground

Then say the ground was wrong

If care is cursed & chance is crown

Then why’d you speak so long?

Tell me—

Is the law all a lie?

Or am I?