The Psalmist’s Early Lament

Your innocence disrobes me
It confuses the time and the flowers
Each drifting in and out of the other
Hours recast upon your face
Opening and closing the day
The streams that mingle into rivers
The eventide song seems to cascade as doves into bells 
Forever into you
Littlest of lovers unbeknownst to themselves
Uncut, ever uncut, by the trail of vanity and grief 
Carving its curvature into every other feature and face
But yours

Your innocence undresses me
It places my body into wildflowers
Reconfigures my spine and my breath
Never again another early death
The gentle blessed steam off crisp morn and earthen air
The land felled and the scent of hay and coal
The earth which moves to your walk and smile
The unending perfumed land
The light without shadow
The hill after hill and vale of brightness in your face
The lost foal found at your arm
Placed at your side
Come hither, come near
Place me into the stream, river, and steam

The earth need not obey for it knows only you
The sky need not obey for it sighs only for you
There is neither dust nor ash, there is only you

In the time preceding all weeping, the earth and sky come home to you
My lips unclothed of all word and deed retreat into themselves relentlessly for you

In the time of first weeping
I stand to kneel at your feet 
In the time of endless cries
I search the deep upon deep of the psalmist’s cavernous plea
I follow the crickets homing sound 
Reverberates my chest and bends the knee
Into the hollow
Into the small
So far have I searched for you and find myself undone
My lonely love who alone in the quiet moves love

[This poem originally appeared in the Winter 2023 issue of Joie de Vivre. To purchase this issue or an annual subscription, click the “Subscribe” tab above.]

Caitlin Smith Gilson, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Holy Cross, New Orleans. She is the author of several books of philosophy, theology, and poetry, most recently As It Is in Heaven: Some Christian Questions on the Nature of Paradise.

Cover image: Carol Scott, Chalices