"Lamentation" by Arta Romney Ballif

If you have not read the poem, Lamentation, by Arta Romney Ballif, I HIGHLY suggest you do. Generally, I am not one who reads nor likes poetry, I am very particular about the kind that I like. This poem will make you feel so many feelings. For me, I felt sadness for Eve, I felt empathy, I felt that she would come to understand the meaning of the experiences brought out by Cain killing Abel.

            “Cain cursed? What has happened to him? God said, ‘A fugitive and a vagabond?’ But God can’t do that. They are my sons, too. I gave them birth in the valley of pain. Adam, try to understand. In the valley of pain, I bore them. Fugitive? Vagabond?” You can feel her confusion and her pain. She loves both her sons greatly, no matter what one of them did. I love where she says, “They are my sons, too.” She understands that that her sons are God’s sons too, but they are hers, too.

            I am not a mother, not yet. So, I can only imagine what she was feeling in these moments of confusion. Her two sons, one dead, and one cursed. Like any parent would, she is pleading, asking the Lord why this had to happen to her and Adam, to her two sons. She gave birth to them. She raised them. She taught them, she loved them. To have your sons, your family torn apart like this, there is no truly understanding what that feels like.

            Bruce C Hafen states, “I wonder if Adam and Eve ever worried about how much fault was theirs for losing Cain and Abel.” My belief, is that yes, OF COURSE they considered if they were to blame, but I truly hope that these thoughts were only brief. Because that guilt would have only brought more pain than necessary to their experience. Another thing I like about what Bruce C Hafen said is how she lost BOTH sons. Yes, Cain killed Abel, but for this, Cain was a fugitive, bound to be a wanderer. This was double the loss that she is feeling, but not just her, Adam as well.

            As I have said in previous posts, Adam and Eve’s story is one of my favorites to learn about. They spent their lives drawing nearer to God, teaching their children, and bettering themselves for all of mankind. The Atonement of Jesus Christ was made available to us because of what Adam and Eve endured, and I hope we never take their sacrifices and their story for granted.