What Psalm Do You Want Me To Do Next?

And a preview of the poem for Psalm 34.

Hello Darkling Psalter readers. I wanted to shoot off a quick email in order to (1) give you a preview of an upcoming poem for Psalm 34 and (2) send you a poll to invite you to vote on what Psalm I should do next?

It has been two weeks since I published the last poem + Psalm translation because we moved to Nashville during those weeks. So that took some time. Also, my other writing project has been taking the lion’s share of the writing time. I’ve been looking at why people deconstruct their faith, a worthy topic that has been getting in the way of my poetry time.

But a new translation and poem for Psalm 34 should be coming out this week.

After that, I’m turning to you to see what Psalm I should do next.

What Psalm Should I Do Next? Vote Below

Preview of the Poem for Psalm 34

(It is inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest)

Poem for Psalm 34—Walk Through The Midnight Lanes Of Memory

Miranda, today
You walk with the king your father
His hand on your shoulder,
And it is impossible to say
Who is guiding whom.

I, Prospero—who has raised you on these rocks, 
Refugee of an alien fullness,
Of another kingdom beyond the chasm, lord of all things
Lost to the storm and to the water— declare,
The fragile shelter we built was real,
but still was not enough to resist
Time’s sinuous tide.
It has brought us fate’s flotsam as from a disaster
Which marks the ending of all we have known.
I can keep you no longer.

Miranda, I know
Things will happen to you
When I am not there. I know
The times you will flee the tempest
And run into its embrace.
But do not pursue the flight from feeling,
The spirits of the air that make you sleep.
Though you press your image
In the mirror and it returns the gesture,
Do not give yourself to the mirror maze. But wait
As we waited these years for the other power,
Unwritten in my books of spells,
To find you.

I—Prospero, wizard of wave and wind, declare:
When you move beyond 
The compass of my waning kingdom;
When Milan and its effervescence
Come to claim you;
When the pain years set in,
The nights of fever dreams;
When you are visited as by ghosts
Who whisper how it was and wasn't;
Remember: What is to be born,
Must be carried to term.

Walk through the midnight lanes of memory
And listen for the sound of water on rocks.
Seek all that I taught you, for which you were not ready.
The plain world is deeper than it seems and thicker.
The lives of stars are nothing to you.
This the tempest exposes.

My daughter, the end discloses everything.
Your demons are not all that follows you. 
Let us pray.