Psalm 42—Where Light From Light Is Separated
"He inhales and waits and feels the light. The echo of her voice dances somewhere."
Note From Andy
Welcome to the Darkling Psalter, a project to translate all 150 Psalms and write a poem and brief commentary for each one.
Here are the links for the psalms that have already been completed: 1, 8, 14, 19, 22, 29, 32, 34, 46, 51, 53, 73, 84, 86, 88, 107, 130 (translation), 130 (poem), 137, 142.
Rendition of Psalm 42
As the deer pants for streams of water,
So I long for you, O God.
My whole being thirsts for the living God.
When shall I come to him and see his face?
Day and night my grief abides,
And my tears have been my food,
While they say, “Where is your God after all?”
These things I remember
As I pour out my soul:
How I would come and go with the others
And walk with them slowly into the house of God.
We laughed long in song and praise.
There were portions of joy for all
Who joined us in the celebrations those days.
But why are you cast down, o my soul?
Why do you roar and rage within me?
Wait for God, even yet praise him,
For he is the God who saves.
When my soul slips down, I remember you
From the land of the Jordan and mount Hermon
And mount Mizar where the rivers flow down
From the high places.
Though the abyss calls to me
In the voice of your waterfalls,
Though all your waves and breakers
Have piled upon me, I will remember
How by day you have laid your love on me
And by night your song is with me.
I bow in prayer to the God who guards my life.
I say to God, my rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I walk in the dark of grief
Because of the distress my enemies have brought me?”
I am bound and shut up
As if all my bones were broken.
While they say to me all day long:
“Where is your God?
Where is your God?”
Why are you cast down, o my soul?
Why do you roar and rage within me?
Wait for God, even yet praise him,
For he is the God who saves.
Notes on the Poem
Psalm 42, like Psalm 130, is one of the Darkling Psalter’s poems about marriage. It is the product of a fear, a thought, and an experience.
The experience that went into this poem like an ingredient in a recipe is the way, when my wife and I wander through a cathedral, we always end up separated. One of us will inevitably become fascinated with something while the other wanders one. Suddenly, I look up and she is gone, but “her voice hushes somewhere through the clerestory.”
The thought that went into this poem is an idea that I’m reminded of every time I see a stained glass window. I think the light that falls from stained glass is a perfect analogy of the way God’s life and goodness comes to us through his creation. We see the window and call the colors beautiful (and they are), but what is really happening is that the glass is exposing to us the beauty inherent in the light itself. Without the light, the window darkens and its beauty fades, but when the light falls on it again, the glass exposes the whole rainbow spectrum that we could not have otherwise seen. So the window is beautiful. And the light is beautiful.
To me, this is an analogy of the way that we need the things God made in order to see his beauty refracted in ways that we otherwise would have missed. We need experiences and people and trees and sunny days and the more deeply we look into them, the better we can glimpse the God who made them good. We ought to inhabit creation theologically, thanking God for the colors and wondering at the light.
And the fear is the fear of death—not of one’s own dying, but of being parted with the people one loves.
I remember talking with a group of students at L’Abri once and someone made a kind of clichéd comment like, “We all die alone.” And I thought, “Why would you think that?” That is certainly what it looks like to the living, from whom one of their number is parted while the others remain, but we do not know really what it is like to open one’s eyes again after death closes them. As Shakespeare said, death is the “undiscovered country.” If I rise from the room where we are talking together and walk into another room to talk to the people there—even if I walk through the doorway between rooms alone—I am still passing from company to company and we would not say that I was ever “alone.” I wonder if death is also like that?
However, in the analogy, the person in the room who sees me go to another place is still left without me. And that is the fear this poem considers.
Poem for Psalm 42—Where Light From Light Is Separated
They are parted
As in a cathedral
When one wanders on, lost to sight,
And one lingers back
Under the ancient window where
light from light is separated.
He was used to the oursness of here.
Now her voice hushes through the clerestory.
He is splintered in roselight—
Scarlet, gold, and cerulean
Pour over the stones. Suddenly,
He is thinking of the shaft of a spear,
A darkling crown, blood, and water.
He trembles in the light and is pierced.
He says aloud, “There are months still.
Surely there are days still!”
He thinks of the time she asked, “Is it safe?”
And he said yes.
They both knew it for what it was:
Not what she asked for,
But not nothing either.
One flesh, they used to joke,
But it was a real magic.
More was given than could be gathered.
More was hoped than mind tried,
Or dream guessed, or hands could hold.
Everything seemed to promise so much,
But none of it could be kept.
He inhales and waits and feels the light.
The echo of her voice dances somewhere.
Read more from Andy on Still Point (reflections on deconstruction and why people leave Christianity) and Three Things (a monthly digest of worthy resources to help people connect with culture, neighbor, and God).
Support the Project
Any work of sufficient length is only sustained contact with by those who benefit from it.
An idea can be a fragile thing and 150 poems and translations is a big idea. I meant this project to be ambitious though and, if it is ever complete, it will be the work of years.
I know the only way I’m ever going to finish this project is if I know people read, value, and support it. Whether you subscribe or not, if you like a poem or find a rendition of a Psalm helpful, drop me a line or leave a comment and let me know.
Photo by adhia huza on Unsplash
I know this is a poem about marriage (and very specific elements of a unique, particular marriage), but one thing I love about this poem is the way its particulars resonate and illuminate the universal experience of a multitude of relationships and (potential) separations.
The particulars it resonates with for me today: recent reunions and farewells within close friend groups (the kind of friendships that become like family and feel like home). We, too, are used to the “oursness of here,” although with friendships the temporal nature of this “oursness” hovers more noticeably/immediately/constantly than within family (and especially, we pray, marriage) relationships.