Psalm 25—Sweet singer, there is always more of your kindness than I thought was left.
All autumn long and all alone, I trod a path through the woods While I prayed and fretted and watched The leaves go bright as pennies. Behind me walked ghost years I thought I’d shaken. Teach me the steps. I know There is a difference between Seeing the way and walking it, But my trust is loss-hearted and heavy. Put it through its unresting, Unhasting paces. Lord, do not remember the sins of my youth. Forget the years I mistook my fears for virtues. Forget my empty renunciations. Remember me through your lasting love. Imagine me through your mercy. I stood a season-long watch In the draughty chapel, listening For your voice between breaths of bellsong. I went wrong at long turns and saw it too late. Will you ravel me back and piece me together? Or is the friendship of the Lord Nearness as I come apart? Show me what there is to know In the way I need to know it. Sweet singer, there is always more Of your kindness than I thought was left. Pardon me. I have longed for peace But never learned it. My days are harried, scraped bare, Blurred from bed to bed, And chased with a short, beaten sleep. Turn to me and be gracious. I found a trouble larger than I am. I can stretch my hands and touch Both walls of my hope, So small a cell it is. Inside, I worry at the promises of the Almighty As a dog worries a bone. Show me the way of peace And I will walk it. Hold my careworn, threadbare heart completely still. Guard me. Deliver me. Show me the snowdrops Crowded in the dooryard When winter comes.
Psalm 32—Lives I thought I’d lost honeycombed and hunched down like winter bees eating my heart's honey.
Innocence is a better world, but I Can hardly imagine the Lord keeps No count against me. I was bent double over My riddle days, wracked and walking The years of my life backward. Lives I thought I’d lost honeycombed And hunched down like winter bees Eating my heart's honey. I shuddered long, stuttering prayers That never gathered to a point, And left me still as full of secrets As a wet bag of blood. Your burning palm pressed me down. I sizzled and blackened. My strength bubbled and boiled away. I held myself together And waited to be overthrown. When I sickened enough on silence, My story broke out of me. I confessed. I did not know there was so much to say. I stacked secrets I could hardly name In neat rows under the open face Of God’s high heaven. I told the whole thing. I told the break of it, the dogged, gagged guilt; The wail of it; the haggard, sweet grit of it. It raised me on a wild, terrifying tide Of words without lies. And I was lifted, forgiven, concealed, Consoled, held, ushered in. My God! Will every broken trust be mended? Everyone who wants to find God, come. Everyone who wants the plain peace Of the holy world in their hands again, come. Everyone who wants to sit in silence Inside the walls of their old fidelities, Come and buy joy back again. God is high hiding place in a flood. His love won’t quit, And he hasn’t met his match yet. So watch me. Learn from me. Listen where the honey is; To buzzing bruises that have been singing So low, so long you hardly hear them. Sorrow is a hard teacher with long, Loud lessons that don’t stop Once its angry engines fire alive. But if you go the whole way, even love Will loop around and hem you in If you let it.
Psalm 36—The clouds are not higher than the measure of God's love, nor the stars, nor the farthest flung distant folly of hope.
The wicked man’s mind runs glad With evil thoughts and he can’t sleep. His heart tramps from wrong to wrong In a dim parade, full of all the wrong fears. He wonders why he would let this glamour go Once he got it started. He spins traps And hangs them in corners. Words tumble Out of his mouth like black spiders. He tells himself he’ll stand Infinity on edge and flick it so it spins. But there is another wisdom and no one Has found the end of it. God’s love. You can’t shake it. It is as solid As a mountain and doesn’t rattle. The clouds are not higher Than the measure of it, Nor the stars, nor the farthest Flung distant folly of hope. We can hide in it, feast on it, Drink it in, dare gale darlings Fledged under bright wings. It is free for the taking every morning As much as hand can hold or heart gather. It is a light strung between stars in long lines, Wide and white against the blank dark. God, keep me in the slow lathe of your love. Make my soul’s bones hone and spin. Lift me up but lay low And unlace every evil plan.
Psalms: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 46, 50, 51, 53, 54, 62, 63, 65, 66, 73, 74, 75, 84, 86, 88, 90, 91, 100, 107, 110, 114, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 137, 139, 140, 142, 147, 148.
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