“To lives that thought their worshipping
A too presumptuous Psalm”
How many times must I say, slant, slant, slant?
Lightning, my dear. Will you be struck?
Will you allow the graveyard fog
to burn its chill down your spine, tap
your shoulder into shiver and jump?
The Psalm wants. What will you give it,
little bunion, little day lily, timid feather?
It wants dark thoughts, what you won’t say
about insufferable clocks, lead boots,
flies in the unshut eyes of the dead.
So much for being good. Don’t sing
just because they ask you. Better to go
out early with your dog into the field
where crows narrate the morning fog.
What are you but two weak eyes
and too many shadows inside your head?
A little terror can see a long way.
Better, my dear, to wince than to die.
The Psalm says start on your knees,
down where the earthworms have risen
to keep from drowning in night’s rain.
They, who see through their skin,
are your teachers. Will you be pupil?
Be possible? Dare to dwell roofless,
where the presumptuous Psalm
might touch down and tip you into song?
Betsy Sholl’s tenth collection of poetry is As If a Song Could Save You (University of Wisconsin Press in fall of 2022), winner of the Four Lakes Prize. Her ninth collection is House of Sparrows: New and Selected Poems (University of Wisconsin, 2019). She teaches in the MFA in Writing Program of Vermont College of Fine Arts and served as Poet Laureate of Maine from 2006 to 2011.
