a tribute for memorial day

Psalm 9 (part 1) – A Song that Love May Endure the Life-Threatening Yoke[1]

Placed upon a Son or Daughter

א – I will give thanks with all my heart.

I will recount your wonder, forward and backwards.

I will rejoice and exalt in You. I will voice Your lofty name

ב – Backtrack the torment in me. Let this sad-mask come off at last.

ג – Get away from inner-gangs lost to misplaced judgement,

May their names be forgotten for good (Doorways[2] best unopened)

ה – Ha! There. These enemies of pure simplicity

lay in ruin, in perpetuity,

the nervous skin shed, busy city-lights fading, forgotten.

ו – And You, Y”H are hidden there, enthroned

in a humble clause, like “Yes.”

And in a just cause – haven for the helpless, fortress for the fearful.

ז – Sing for God’s sake, and feel the presence

where we gather and celebrate our stories, Your story, in song.

Remember too, the blood-curdling cry, forget not the call,

connection inspiring action.

ח – Help me heal the hate that seeps from self-afflicted isolation.

Raise me above fear before death’s door. Grace me

that I can sing your praises in the gateways

where daughters of Zion roll in joy, the hour has come.

ט – The trap set for another ensnares the setter,

arrested in the net of arrogance and judgement.

This is folly. Sela’.

י – You can help me steer clear of that tormented line of inquiry

that forgets to cede the throne of judgment,

and never forgets the hope that flows

from a humility reaching with both hands,

lifting you up, not settling into a stubborn self-reliance.

Human, all too human, in your able hands. Sela’.

FOCUS PHRASES:

Odeh b’chol libi – I give thanks with all my heart!

Celebrate in song

Cede the throne of judgment

[1] The Hebrew is unclear, here I have divided the word עלמות/Almut, into two words, עול מוות/‘Ol mavet / literally “the yoke of death [for a son]”

[2] The letter ד/dalet, meaning door, is curiously absent from the cloaked alphabetic acrostic of this psalm.