(1) After Psalm 130
Where I call you, we’re deep.
There you might be,
nearest the voice of my sorrow:
like you she has no end.
Sharing the one silence:
you in your ever,
I in my fear.
Where saying you fails
I wait you. Here your word might be.
I hope you. Make
of my hope your dawn,
of what I most endure your day.
(2) After Psalm 131
The name that was before thoughts were
you are, in me.
Before I had a mouth
I had a mother.
My soul that was to meet you here
will wait. My lips can wait no more
to thank you: that they still can say your name.
(3) After Psalm 132
Any home I’ve lived in
was a tent in the wind.
Any night, my bed has been
a thing to cling and hide against:
a cold mountain.
And if I have to pray my eyes
to shut in darkness for an hour –
it’s all because I never find
your place on this earth.
Not in the tent:
not in the wind.
(4) After Psalm 133
Rarely on the earth
we are together.
Where we are, the balsam is
that once upon us brings the limbs
to give their light forever.
Dew that once upon the morning
brings the mountain glowing through the day.
Once be seen
is always be, together.
--Lloyd Haft
