! Laying Down The Psalms Poem by Michael Shepherd

The book sags open on my lap
as I cease reading, stare into blind space,
gaze into a history that answers not;
lost in the troubles of an ancient people
whose hearts are not, yet could be mine..

I need to talk to the Psalmist: now:
for I cannot carry all this burden;
for despite the burning poetry of faith,
my ears, my mind, my heart
find neither mercy nor sweet justice
running to you, arms outstretched, …

this God of sin, of wrath and retribution
whom you seek to appease, to praise,
to beg support of, against those enemies
who will never let you live in peace,
who afflict your soul, steal the sacred tents you pitch
beside sweet waters and the grazing flock…

this God who seems to have a personal interest
in putting your nation through tests, more tests,
like twisted cloths slapped on flat wet stones
beside the black river of sadness by women without hope –

this God to whom you raise despairing hands,
cry prayers, shout to the skies, list grievances –

can this God be – as wise Greeks say He is –
a god who ever lives, sleeps, wakes,
within your very heart – not in some vague
somewhere way out there…

or as the wise Hindus say He is –
the very same within you as He is ‘out there’? …

and so, is all your raw outpouring of the human heart
an artifice, formality, figure of a poet’s speech…
you, knowing all too well that by this means
you call upon those vast reserves of human spirit
deep, deep inside your very self; from where,
eternal springs of healing mercy
pour like rushing waterfalls of love,
like the tender-guarded flock of sheep
who graze the grass of peace..
who never fails to hear, closer, so much closer
than the skies whose very fabric now you rend
with cries that sound so fruitless…
closer, close; for He’s your very self? …

-and of necessity, shares that same inner self
with all the woes which your own ‘unripe deeds’,
as Aramaic calls what we call ‘sin’ –
have brought upon yourself; brought down
the heavens all about your ears…

Is all this a metaphor for faith
put to the ultimate test to win
the crown, the seat on the right hand? …

tell me, Psalmist, that this might be true; to salve
the hearts of your tormented, God-impassioned people
for whom history has yet in store
more tests than any mouth would want to tell?