Idiot Psalms

1 A psalm of Isaak, accompanied by Jew's harp. O God Belovéd if obliquely so, dimly apprehended in the midst of this, the fraught obscuring fog of my insufficiently capacious ken, Ostensible Lover of our kind—while apparently aloof—allow that I might glimpse once more Your shadow in the land, avail for me, a second time, the sense of dire Presence in the pulsing hollow near the heart. Once more, O Lord, from Your enormity incline your Face to shine upon Your servant, shy of immolation, if You will. 2 A psalm of Isaak, accompanied by baying hounds. O Shaper of varicolored clay and cellulose, O Keeper of same, O Subtle Tweaker, Agent of energies both appalling and unobserved, do not allow Your servant's limbs to stiffen or to ossify unduly, do not compel Your servant to go brittle, neither cramping at the heart, nor narrowing his affective sympathies neither of the flesh nor of the alleged soul. Keep me sufficiently limber that I might continue to enjoy my morning run among the lilies and the rowdy waterfowl, that I might delight in this and every evening's intercourse with the woman you have set beside me. Make me to awaken daily with a willingness to roll out readily, accompanied by grateful smirk, a giddy joy, the idiot's undying expectation, despite the evidence. 3 A psalm of Isaak, whispered mid the Philistines, beneath the breath. Master both invisible and notoriously slow to act, should You incline to fix Your generous attentions for the moment to the narrow scene of this our appointed tedium, should You—once our kindly secretary has duly noted which of us is feigning presence, and which excused, which unexcused, You may be entertained to hear how much we find to say about so little. Among these other mediocrities, Your mediocre servant gets a glimpse of how his slow and meager worship might appear from where You endlessly attend our dreariness. Holy One, forgive, forgo and, if You will, fend off from this my heart the sense that I am drowning here amid the motions, the discussions, the several questions endlessly recast, our paper ballots. 4 Isaak's penitential psalm, unaccompanied. Again, and yes again, O Ceaseless Tolerator of our bleaking recurrences, O Forever Forgoing Foregone (sans conclusion), O Inexhaustible, I find my face against the floor, and yet again my plea escapes from unclean lips, and from a heart caked in and constricted by its own soiled residue. You are forever, and forever blessed, and I aspire one day to slip my knot and change things up, to manage at least one late season sinlessly, to bow before you yet one time without chagrin.