Psalm 001
A psalm inspired by a poem on how not to read a poem.
In Poem 001: Introduction to Poetry, the former US poet laureate Billy Collins reflects on how some of his students approach a poem. How they try to bully it into submission, try and force it to admit its intent.
Collins uses an arresting image in which a poem is tied to a chair in order to torture a confession out of it. I was recently trying to get my head around the psalms, a poetic canon within the Bible, for a talk I was giving at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. I realised that some people living inside faith traditions adopt the same life-throttling approach with their sacred writings. This is a poem I wrote to read in the talk, which takes inspiration from Collins.
Psalm 001: Introduction to the Psalms (with thanks to Billy Collins)
We lift the psalm into a palm
Hold it anxiously like holy relic
An ancient sacred sign
Someone has left behind
We are assured the psalm will speak to us
This is how it has been trained.
This life from which it emerged back then
knows our life now
We’re told.
That long gone world knows this one
We’re in.
But what if the psalm chooses not to address us ?
What if it looks at us, as if to say, this is my psalm,
write your own.
I suggest we take the psalm and put someone
seeking asylum in there,
put them at your front door
That all those sheep are replaced by electric cars,
and the shepherd has retrained as your GP.
Let’s imagine that the Lord,
though everywhere in the psalms, has now,
like other unelected peers,
been abolished.
That the pit, with its miry clay,
is a freshwater stream, now sewage-contaminated.
And that when you lift your eyes to the hills
you can’t quite make them out,
what with your failing eye sight.
All the while you’re having another row
with god
who insists on behaving as if she no longer exists.
Do not tie the psalm to a chair with rope
to torture a confession out of it.
Instead, invite it into your kitchen,
find it among the ingredients of this meal you’re cooking.
Taste and see that the food is good.
‘This Heart, Poems From The Universe Inside’, includes several new psalms. It’s available from Wild Goose Books here. (I found the VW ID Buzz (pictured at the top) here.
