Psalm 1: “Fulfilled” (Psalter Project)

posted in: Poems | 9

A few years ago, my sister Lindsay and I began writing a “Psalter” together: our own poems based on each of the biblical Psalms in order. I write the odd-numbered psalms, she writes the evens! All kinds of life events have slowed us down, but I love the poems we’ve written so far in this project, and I’m going to start posting them here. So here is my riff on Psalm 1, entitled, “Fulfilled.”

LeafOut

Fulfilled, replete, at ease in your own skin
Comes with the company you keep, and when
You will not walk with whining, vicious voices,
You won’t stand still with habits, viscous vices,
And you won’t sit and sneer, then you’ll be there

Where you will trace God’s tracks with gentle care
Replay God’s plans and laugh God’s laughs and share
Your sleep with such an unsuspected spouse
And wake to find his whisper in your mouth

Then you will leaf out, lovely, like a tree
From mulch to twig, substantial, solid, sure
Tuck your toes in sod, as seasons plod
Spread and stretch and sprout and swell with fruit

But other people, those who won’t want God,
Will drift and fade and wander in the cold
Shrivel, shrink, and wither, thin and sad,
With fraying threads of branches, fetal trunks

When time cracks open and we go to God
Transplanted off this page into the woods
Your roots will cling, your lungs fill, you will stand!
But they will blur and fade and never breathe
Not filled up. Never filled full.

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