Forgotten Ground Regained

Silence Is Not Safety (After Psalm 7)

I wrote this poem as part of a sequence of alliterative takes on some of the individual Psalms (Psalms 1-8) that I wrote between 1997 and 2000.
Silence is not safety for the grazing gazelle, Who shifts, unsure (though he knows well he is watched), Who glances sidelong, searching for the blotch where brush May surge aside with rushing roar.
So am I safe? O Sovereign King, Protect me, turn their spring aside. Unless You help, my Hope, their widening jaws Will bite and break, their claws catch hold.
Master, are my thoughts like theirs, Too hard to help or spare the poor? No, I'll not endure the shame! Kill me, my King, if I'm to blame for blood!
Up in Your anger! Rise against their rage! Waken, set the stage, assemble all The world to see the wicked called to court. Rise on high, rule mortal men, rule me ...
And judge me justly, Lord God, searcher of all souls, Vindicate the virtuous, hold them in Your hand, Hold me when You make Your stand! Establish Peace till all the predators have perished from the earth.
I stand in the shadow of God my Shield, Who draws His wrath to strike them down Mid-spring, whose splendor drowns the day, Who comes in justice, crowned as king,
Whose sword is sharpened, whose hand is set With arrows ready to let out life: Unless they turn, He will not relent: His anger's free, His patience spent at last.
For they love to make mischief as a mother bears a child, And when the child is grown -- wild, unconstrained -- Trouble and turmoil, disdain and hate Are their offspring's gift, and ingrate's thanks.
Let us name the Name of God whose glory Rises in might like the morning sun -- Rejoice in His justice, wonder at His ways, Who makes His gazelles to graze in peace Free from harm, -- Fenced by the bulwark -- -- of His arm. --
Copyright © Paul D Deane, 1999
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