For Embarking Upon Another Year – A Psalm Resembling the Movement of Sparrows

Note: italicized here are clippings from Psalms 39 & 40.

For Embarking Upon Another Year – A Psalm Resembling the Movement of Sparrows

You put a new song in my mouth
and now I can sing through dark winters
like a choir of sparrows.
Not those chipping sparrows,
who sound like a referee’s whistle,
but those Golden-crowned ones,
Lord, I could listen to them all day.

And when you brought me up out of the miry clay,
I swear, free of all that muck,
I flew through the window 
to perch beside one of those birds,
with a big smile on my beak.

It is written of me, in one of your volumes,
that I delight to do your will,
and it’s true — now that I’ve met your mom side,
your sorrow side, your broken-and-betrayed side,
your womb side, your (many breasted) El Shaddai side —
I’m bound to you
like a definition.

But that time I asked you to make known
the measure of my days, and you said,
grass, handbreadth, consumed by moths,
that was hard to hear and I was sad for a long time,
even though I’ve heard 
that the skull has a permanent smile.

When I was in that horrible pit
and you lifted me out and set my feet on solid rock
I was so full of joy I wanted to make a bonfire
and burn something for you,
and you said, Don’t be an idiot,
just watch your step and keep your ears open.

Then, when I started counting my iniquities,
and saw they were more numerable
than the hairs on my head
and I asked you to shave me bald,
I didn’t hear back from you.
Even when, speaking good King James, I begged,
Oh Lord, make no tarrying!

And that’s how it goes between you and me.
I mean, just when I think we’re getting on,
you slip out, only to come back to catch me in a bribe,
which, I’ll admit, makes up like 90 percent of my praise.

But then, contrary to all that Hillsong (don’t get me wrong,
some of that can be arm-liftingly beautiful),
praise is not the thing you crave.
I should have known. It only took Monty Python
two skits and a movie to send up
centuries of systematic gotcha-doctrine.

Anyway, it’s not fallen to me to preach in the great congregation
but I have this blue-collar poetry habit on offer,
which has been rag-dolling me around for years.
I won’t elevate it and say it’s my thorn, but there it is,
and for what it’s worth, I’m fine for another
whirl ‘round the solstice wheel.

But before I sign Amen, I want you to know,
whether I’m sparrowing in the predawn
or baying about my lost bonhomie,
I’m not bored.