Cain's Punishment

These poems reflect on Cain’s punishment for killing Abel, mischief that Jane Austen’s Elizabeth still causes, three swimmers striving to cross Puffer’s Pond, Albert Einstein’s barbershop visit, a murder-suicide and a botched execution, father and sons picking wild blueberries, a snowman built by neighbor children, winter cold and silent snow, nursing home, hospice, and death, feeding quarrelsome birds and judging geese and falcons, love for a wife and tears of a father, ocean play and gardening in old age, honor, vengeance, and other matters light and serious. Cover woodcut, Cain killing Abel, by Albrecht Durer