Links

This Site:

• Gateway
• Words

Poetry:

• Poetic Voices
• poets.org

O LORD, when I was finally silent before you in your holy temple, then I heard your voice. I trembled at your words and I stood in awe of your deeds. Begin working again in the midst of us, O Lord. In the midst of our time and in the midst of our hearts let your work quicken. Let it be revived. In the midst of our age and before our faces make your work known throughout our wayward land and above our pompous passions. When your crushing wrath rises up from the depths, O Lord, remember your mercy. Cause your mercy to anchor and shelter against the tide.

From the south, you swept into history. You are the Holy One from the desert who resided on Mount Paran. But your glory enveloped the whole of the heavens, yes, even the whole earth echoed your praise. Your brightness burned like noon day in the black of night, the intensity of the power you held streamed from your fist as shafts of unassailable light. Poured before you was the mystery of that Shekinah glory; pestilence rained down and the feverish land dried and cracked behind your feet.

You stood and took measure of the earth. One glance and the nations were shaken from their slumber. With averted eyes, they beheld the everlasting mountains scattered like chaff and the ancient hills bowing low. Only your ways are everlasting now. For I have seen the tents of the armies of Cushan shudder in the fever of affliction, their plans shred in the gale. I’ve seen the collective curtain of Midian tremble and wilt where you brushed by.

O Lord, when you rode high into battle on your horses pulling the chariots of salvation, was your wrath directed at the rivers and against the sea? No, they were only tools in your hand like your bow stripped bare and made ready for the arrows of judgment. Mighty oaths were sworn over them in your presence. You loosed, and hush! The silence gave way to the splitting earth. The mountains shuddered and from their wounds overflowed tremulous rivers that divided the land. Reverberating echoes rose from the deep, adding her voice to the astonishment of creation and lifting her hands to the heavens. The sun and moon stood still in their courses, but at the flash of your arrows and the gleaming of your spear, they sped on out of sight.

Nothing can keep you separated from your people. In anxious wrath, you marched over the earth and stormed through the nations. You trampled them underfoot. It was for the salvation of your people that you moved. To save your anointed, you struck through the house of evil. The head of that house was laid open from neck to navel, from foundation to tower’s banner. In a vision, I saw the head of their throngs pierced through with his own spears.

But the devouring hordes are already set in motion. I saw them swarm out to scatter us in the whirlwind with an exultation that those feel who secretly consume the oppressed. You trampled through the sea and your mighty steeds bore you on the surge of deep waters, yet I heard it as the spurring on of judgment and I trembled in the core of my being. My lips quivered, rottenness entered my bones, and my legs failed because the knowledge of your revelation came to me and I must wait patiently for the day of distress, when these troops arise and we are invaded.

Even so, I remember the hope and will not be moved. Though the fig tree should not blossom and no fruit hang on the vines…though the olive trees should fail and the fields yield no grain…though the flocks be lost and the cattle come no more into the stalls…Yet I will exult and rejoice in the Lord, the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength. He makes my feet swift and sure like the deer’s. He’s given me the high hills to tread upon. And I shall walk in the spirit of faith that welcomes joy.

©2006 Carl Pecinovsky