Submission By Sayeed Abubakar

[Sayeed Abubakar]

Cain's Complaint

Let others say whatever they wish; why didn't you say: 

‘Love is not a sin'? Standing for a while in the court  of love, 

why didn't you say: ‘The man who loves may become a killer, 

a fire, a storm or a tidal surge; if you afford the power, 

either kill him or exile but never call him a sinner'? 

Could Abel love you more than I do, Aclima? 
Was Abel more manly, more war-loving, more love-mongering? 
Was Abel more destitute to the world of love than I? 

It is I who only for you stroke his brother's head into pieces 
like a glass broken at a single blow.
With the ceaseless rain of blood, I made the cornfield 

stained and damp. And only for your sake, Aclima, 

I invited the cruel Death to the eternal din of life.

What is my fault, tell me; why did you get so lucrative 
like the alluring grapes? Why did you get so irresistibly delicious

like the colorful mangoes ripe to the core? By smearing 

the fire of beauty on lips and cheeks, why did you start 

heating the fry-pan of my youth and baking the bread 

of my heart so severely? 

For your sake, I  disobeyed  the Lord of darkness and light; 

yet how strangely you rejected me by calling me heartless! 

For your sake, I rudely invented the festival of killing on earth; 
still how surprisingly you flung me into the dustbin of despair! 

Aclima, is love a sin? Is love a fruit of the forbidden tree?

The poem is based on the Biblical myth where Abel and Cain fell in love with Aclima, the daughter of Adam. Can was rejected and he killed Abel. It is Cain's Complaint against Aclima. It is Quranic myth. Same.