Proverbs 30 (revised)
Who has mapped every grain of the shore?
Who has cupped the wind in hands?
Who has wrapped the waters in robes?
Not me. Nothing holy moves my tongue.
I have been a fool over and over.
Yet I say this —
Three things cannot be satisfied:
the barren womb
the sword, always hungry
the fire that never says enough
Three things cannot be finished:
the sea fills with rivers
yet does not rise
the eye fills with light
yet is always looking
the ground fills with names
yet does not speak
Three things pass understanding:
how eagles see
the clear wheels of air
how a stone
knows north
how marriage moves
between a man and a woman
Oh, Wisdom, this world
is too wonderful for me.
If my heart
falters, let it stop.
If my eyes lie, cut them out. If I am foolish,
cover my mouth. Then lift me,
light me, bring me
to life. Give me joy, give me
love in this world. Help me as I stagger.
Hold me as I sleep.
_____________
See, I actually read my comments. And thus inspired, I took out "Proverbs 30" again. And, you're right, it's better than most.
"Proverbs 30" and "Book of Wisdom" were some of the first poems I did in my going-on-two years of writing out of the Bible. They are much closer to their biblical sources than some more recent jazz psalms, such as like a stranger I have stood by the world amazed" or "scraps and velvet". I kinda like my jazz psalms, or anyway feel as if I've settled into a form and voice for them. And having settled into a voice, I'm thinking of chucking some of the earlier stuff, from before I found a voice, things like Psalm 88, and the curse psalm Psalm 109.
Or maybe I don't mean voice, maybe I mean purpose. I've come to see these writings out of the Wisdom books of the Bible (Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Wisdom, etc) as a form of lectio divina -- a writer's form of lectio, but still pretty traditional. In lectio, you let the reading come in, stir things up, then you reach out, and then you settle down .... well, ish. (Benedict says it better than I do.) These more recent psalms of mine have been the reaching out -- naturally I have to reach out through a pen.
But "Proverbs 30" and "Wisdom" are much more about the coming in. I don't mean to get all mysty on you, but they were poems that seized me up and rattled me around until I got something on the page. There's nothing contemplative about them.
Yeesh, this note is the most pretentious writerly precious bit of stuff I've written in a while, isn't it? Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks.
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Object lesson on spam: I publicized the jbowcarnival@yahoo.ca e-mail account on Friday. About thirty hours later, I received my first spam (your typical fleeing Nigerian dictator one). Just goes to show how much garbage there is flowing about the... Read More
