For more renditions of the Psalms, visit darklingsalter.substack.com.
Text of the rendition:
Psalm 2—Don’t ask for answers; ask for waiting. You barely know the meaning of things.
Why do the lost nations rage and rally
Devices against the living God?
The kings of the earth take their stand, saying,
“Enough! Break these bindings.
God is only a consuming fire.
He will turn his hand against us.
So we became stoneburners.
So we split love seven ways,
Were cast in gold, were heaven itself.
We plotted and raged.
We spoke in tongues. We saw secret things.
It cost us our lives, but God, we were beautiful.
How were we supposed to love
That thunderous light?
The auguries were all indifferent,
And time tumbles pips up.
If you go back enough
It is all just dice.”
The Lord of all the earth
Laughed in his wild water heart and said,
“For all your talk, you still missed
Every chance to change you got.
You were unbreakable, untouchable.
You clad yourself and seethed.
Anymore, you barely need a reason
To give yourself to things
You can’t come back from.
You could never pick up the hot coals
Inside yourself and kiss them.
Even still, you could have lived
If you had learned to take inside yourself
The reprisals of your friends
When they braved your dagger-bladed smile.
I wanted to gather you together
And walk you through the lanes of longsuffering,
But you wouldn’t.
So now you have headaches
And suffer through all you wanted.
So now you are wires and exposed bone
And fever and heartstring.
So now the day wrings mute confessions out of you
And you stay in bed so no one will hear them.
Then, the Lord said to me,
“Today, you are my son
And I am your father forever.
The throne of God is God’s alone
But it was always shared.
I made the earth to be given—
Ask, and it is yours,
But you must also take these enemies of mine.
Break them like pottery;
Bind them back like pieces
Of your own broken body.
So don’t ask for answers;
Ask for waiting.
You barely know the meaning of things.
God’s wrath burns at a touch.
The shelter of his kindness
Is the only shelter left.
If you are lucky
and wise and warned,
What you get is quiet.
What you get is your life.
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