As the White Petals of the Desert Windflowers Tilting Sunward in the Breeze
a new version of psalm 71
I fought against this version with some weird intentions, and lost, and it came out pretty beautiful—I hope you think so, anyway.
The day I started it I was walking through the forest that is my temple now, thankful for the succulent lemon-pinesol twang of a fresh-plucked spruce tip, and came to a clearing of blooming apple trees, their white blossoms fluttering in the breeze, and fresh green grass coming up to where their shins would be, if trees had shins, and I thought: I’m always like this, man—spruce tips, white blossoms, little violet flowers in the green grass—there’s a reason I call myself “just some kum-bah-yah hack poet-philosopher” on my substack profile, and in my own head.
So, I was going to force myself to not get stuck on “flower this, flower that”—but, then, well: Apparently the title is “As the White Petals of the Desert Windflowers Tilting Sunward in the Breeze.”
So, that’s how that went.
But I did go into the darkness, instead of getting hung up on Earth only being beautiful, and not also terrifying. And that’s the other thing: I was going to let the poem be entirely external (no unnecessary spiritualizing). And, in fact, maybe the original Hebrew poem is largely external, with some internal shades—they are David’s reflections on the approach of death in the body, due to old age, coupled with the approach of insurrectionists in the desert, due to them not wanting to submit to him, et cetera.
But as I reflected on this psalm, which I chose because I didn’t like it (I figured, if I didn’t like it, there were depths I was missing), I found that the very brightly vivid imagery which came out of the roots of the words, which transformed them from religious abstractions into externalized things someone could smell, taste, hear, see, touch, if they were in the desert, too—I found that, the more I externalized the psalm, the more internally I felt it.
Which, to state the obvious, I guess is the point of metaphor, of language itself.
Speaking of language: You’ll see the word “harmony” a lot, which is how I like to translate tsedaqah now—”righteousness” or “right-relationship.” And a lot of this is very untethered, libertine expansion off the original roots, as usual, but nothing is entirely made up. As I’ve said before, my psalm versions are to the original Hebrew texts, as totem poles are to biology textbooks—what you’re getting here is vivid stacks of wild animal faces, not descriptions of phylogenetic trees.
The psalm is below—hope you enjoy. And next Friday will bring the fifth essay in the quietly iconoclastic Nurturers of the Real series, the first of which is free to read or listen to—hope you’ll enjoy that, too.
Love in Messiah,
the king psalm-reciter and psalm-singer himself,
-graham
Here comes the paywall, placing my hat on the sidewalk of the world as a writer. Past the wall, you'll find the text of the poem, an easily printable PDF version of it, a recording of me reading the poem in soundscape that fits the mood—a seashore maybe, or bustling city, or a sunlit forest—and the comment section, where you're safe to say what you really think.
-graham
As the White Petals of the Desert Windflowers Tilting Sunward in the Breeze
In you alone, Yah, do I take refuge:
So don’t let me wither away like sepia reeds
Rattling at the edge of a vanished stream.
Take me into your shade; in the cool shadows
Of harmony with you, let me escape.
As the white petals of the desert windflowers
Tilting sunward in the breeze,
Incline your ear to the whispers of my voice,
And come and rescue me.
For you alone are my flint megalith, my only temple.
And to you alone do I ever return, as if to a vast emptiness,
Into the coolness of your shadows,
Where your voice is serene in the darkness, a refreshing breeze:
You are my citadel, my tower of rock.
Let me evade, my Highest One,
The grasp of the wandering and the lost,
And escape the clutches of the blood-stained and polluted,
Whose faces are scrunched up and bloodied
From years of lapping the rancid oasis of cruelty.
For you are my only hope, Yah, my only king.
And to you alone do I cling, like a little one clinging to his father,
As my only safety and my confidence.
It’s you who’s held me up and led me by the hand
Ever since I left my mother’s womb—you yourself, my Highest One,
Who severed me from my mother’s body, and carried me into the daylight
Like a bundle of grass from the Earth, freshly scythed,
And now I’m reaching upward for your hands.
I’m holding my hands palm upward in the sky, and singing for you, Father,
Because my life has meaning when I’m like that, a sign to the wandering masses,
That you alone have become my refuge and my fortress.
So let my mouth overflow with songs of your shining greatness,
And of the honor which adorns you like the blossoms of a tree
—You, the loveliest of kings, arrayed in garlands of living flowers.
Don’t rip me away from yourself when I’m dried out and wilted,
Tossed away in the darkness of senescence—when the wind of time blows,
And my petals fall to the ground.
For those who rip up this tent and point my own tent-poles at me
Like spears, string words together against me in my own head
—Those who lie in wait for my inmost breath,
Standing like a mirage of trees, and whispering in my mind’s shadows:
The Highest One has left him. Let us pursue him and take him.
Then let us stretch him out and beat him like a tambourine,
Since no one will come to the rescue. O Highest One—don’t be far away like that!
Elohay, my High One, run to my side
And be my nearest helper, that in your sunlight they might wither up like grass,
Those twisting themselves like thorns against me.
As the bright-winged falcon suddenly drops from the sky,
Snatch them away in your talons, and pierce their hearts,
For they are trying to destroy me!
And outside in the scorching sun, I will wait to feel your wings
As the cool breezes of twilight, waving my hands in the sky,
As the many-fingered branches of the palm
Singing praises to you, green again and ever-shining,
Singing in the sapphire sky of the beauty of your infinite harmonies
And your endless mercies: I’m going to and fro
In the warrior-strength flowing from Yahweh Adonai,
Always mindful of harmony with you,
The sole fiber of my being. You have been my shepherd
Since my youth, O Highest One—I’ve been face to face
With your own creative power, and now in the twilight of this age,
Ashen and reeling from vertigo,
Don’t leave me here alone, until I’ve showed this generation
The face of your warrior-strength, also,
—That harmony with you is high and lifted up, my High One,
My Tower, who has created majestic things,
And who has shown me great anguish and soul-crushing distress, also,
Who will turn me towards life once again,
And lift me up from the abyss of the Earth, amplifying my presence,
And surrounding me on all sides in a flourishing oasis of solace.
I’ll strum the zither in praise of you, my Highest One;
Your faithfulness will I pluck with the harp.
O Israel’s Holy One—my lips will shout for joy,
Singing loudly of how you ransomed my inmost breath,
My tongue cooing like a dove, meditating,
Murmuring, windlike, to the flowers,
About the joy of harmony with you.
That's a good morning prayer, Graham. Thanks. The audio version is lovely.
Lovely, especially that image of the bundle of newly scythed fresh grass