It’s the last Thursday Short Poem before next Tuesday’s election — another skirmish in the ongoing culture wars that seem interminable and,ultimately, utterly unimportant. This Laurence Wieder poem, riffing on Psalm 144 (easily one of my least favorites, of course), is about enemies, guests, us and them. It appeared in First Things many years ago — and First Things is one of the indispensable combatants on the conservative side in the culture war. With considerable ambivalence, I’ve aligned myself with the forces of the left in that same struggle. But sometimes, it seems the right has the better writing. Anyhow, it’s a goodie.
Mosaic (Psalm 144)
My fingers twang the bowstring.
Arrows flying from the tower
Land whole armies at my feet.
What is one human,
That God should know or care about him or his children?
Steam clouds, shadows in the air.
Lightning makes the mountains smoke;
Broken sunlight, rainbows.
Nock your shafts, Lord, fix
Those strangers speaking languages
With no word for truth,
Who hold one hand out fingers crossed behind their back.
Teach me to pluck the heartstring, sing
Like David did before
Those strangers speaking languages
With no word for truth.
Set our sons in glazed
Enamelled tile patterns, inlaid
Daughters, walls and pillars.
Keep our pantries stocked with meat, fruit, grain, and drink.
Let no guest uninvited, come,
Nor welcomed, go.
When miseries shout in the street,
Take them in hand.
Are there any two lines more perfectly, fundamentally antithetical to the Gospel than these?
Let no guest uninvited, come,
Nor welcomed, go.
Makes my hair stand on end with awful recognition.
Aren’t those two lines, though, a great statement of the Gospel, as well?
All are invited, and no one’s going is welcomed.
Sam, you and I read the line differently! I read it as a statement of tribalism at its worst. No one who we don’t think belongs will be allowed in, and once in, you can’t leave.
One of the wonders of poetry, eh, that we can read it in so many ways?
I read it both ways–one of the things I love about the Psalms (and which this poem captures and highlights excellently.) They are at the same time tribal, and a foreshadowing of the kingdom of Christ where tribes are irrelevant.