Western Red Cedar: Missing Psalm
God’s voice shatters the cedars; God shattered the cedars of Lebanon
Psalm 29:6
Who would have the heart to shatter these?
Too bad David couldn’t know these cedars
(Jacob’s green-winged angels and their ladders,
so thick, you can’t quite catch them take the skies;
lacework always hides the last few rungs),
nothing like their puny Lebanese cousins.
Who can know what sinuous horizons
they’d have smuggled into David’s songs?
He might not have heard God’s voice at all
in the sudden, giddy clamor of his own.
That’s why God kept these trees confidential.
But now God laments that missing psalm.
Once in a while, He’d like to daydream
about the wondrous things He might have done.
Jacqueline Osherow is Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Utah. Her most recent book is most The Hoopoe’s Crown (BOA).
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