Opening King David. Brad Davis

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ out into a spacious place.

      Psalm 18:19

      Seth’s Pond, West Tisbury

      All things hold together. Colossians 1:17

      Two lady’s-slippers up along the path,

      a kingfisher, the indifferent moon

      still hanging in a brilliant, mid-spring sky,

      my son in a sweater in a rowboat—

      thank you. I choose to believe

      the universe not merely big, but chock-full

      with presence. Yet may the pessimist be

      right about us—pitiable flecks of dust?

      With terror in the air, the NBA

      shifting into All-Star mode, and ninety

      e-mails to clear by Monday, what is true?

      (Why, O my soul, do you prattle on thus?)

      A tall reed gives slightly in the cool breeze,

      nearly buckles when a redwing alights.

      Their voice goes out into all the earth.

      Psalm 19:4

      So

      If all created things speak wordlessly

      of their creator—a turkey’s wattle?—

      then what do tax loopholes say about us?

      Or bombed-out cities? The gossip of blue

      highways—quaint, inaudible buzz—is it

      praise or lamentation? Could even these

      restless streams make glad the heart of God?

      Old Madeline (Wind in the Door) L’Engle

      says all true art, looking death in the face

      and rising into light, feeds “the River.”

      O, to be able to hear, unfiltered,

      the riotous vertical tongues of trees

      and see beneath their cowled humility

      the fire that burns yet will not consume them.

      May the Lord send help from Zion.

      Psalm 20:1–2

      Answer Me

      Bill’s a friend, homeowner, married man—says

      their small lakeside place has begun to feel

      too much for them—can’t seem to keep up with

      what’s breaking down—and back on campus

      “well done” has become a moving target

      he quit trying to hit months ago. No

      surprise his wish to remain here has quit

      on him—Donna starts round eight of chemo

      next week. This morning my wife surprised me:

      “If Bill decides to leave, we should leave, too.”

      What’s left to keep us staying anywhere

      when, despite faith, hope, love, we keep losing

      ground to discouragement, the suspicion

      that no amount of work will ever be enough?

      Root out their seed from among the children of men.

      Psalm 21:10

      Shock and Awe

      Little words build, become fighting words,

      and before you know it, some enemy

      has us believing our cause is righteous.

      Which is when our poets, like prophets

      or sorely agitated roosters, take

      courage and launch preemptory psalms,

      smart bombs aimed at the heads of the wicked.

      Pretty ugly stuff.

      Today, as I prayed

      in a local wildlife sanctuary,

      two kestrels rose from the meadow, hovered

      like the Spirit above the primal sea,

      and clarified my way forward. Holding

      to beauty, I must leave the rest to others

      who may not hear the word of April wings.

      I am a worm and not a man.

      Psalm 22:6

      In Fact

      Show me an absolutely placid mind,

      and I’ll show you a corpse or one as good

      as dead: one in denial of the swill—

      the lies of desire—I keep falling for.

      Try as we may, we cannot lift ourselves

      from ourselves rabbit-from-hat-like and live

      to tell of it, though liars make bundles

      claiming otherwise. We are a mess, yet

      it pleases Him—and let us quit whining

      about the gender of divinity—

      to be numbered among the conflicted.

      So here, among yappy dogs, snorting bulls,

      bone-thin cows, let us offer God our praise:

      Damn, you’re beautiful; and your handiwork.

      The Lord is my shepherd.

      Psalm 23:1

      23

      Roger loathes being likened to a sheep,

      struggles with self-esteem, takes the figure

      as an СКАЧАТЬ