“You do realize the trouble you’re in, don’t you,” said
Lady. “If this is to be anything like the Bible, you’ll have to have at least
four gospels, all giving mostly similar accounts of the life of Johann
Sebastian Bach, but with just enough jarring details to provide scholars for
the next millennia to do exegesis.”
Damn, what’s exegesis? It’s one of those words I always look
up, understand vaguely, and then forget. Sort of like “semiotics,” except that
I never even understand that one…
“You know, scholarly interpretation of the text,” she went
on to tell me. “Then you’ll have to have all the other books, and the
Apocrypha. Oh, and guess what? You’re gonna have to produce a couple hundred
psalms, unless, of course, you want to emulate King David, who according to one
Dead Sea Scroll, wrote 3600 of them. So that’s one a day for almost ten years.
Get going, buster!”
“I absolutely refuse to write psalms,” I told her. “And
speaking of which, did you know they’re crapping up all the good ones? I can
tell you because I listened to this absolutely great cantata the other day—BWV
131—and it’s based on Psalm 130. You know the one that starts, ‘Out of the
depths have I cried unto thee.’ Well it’s a lovely old thing, but it has a
little ticker in it, namely about fearing God. So I looked the new version, and
it’s been scrubbed up, leaving it substantially dirtier. Now, instead of
fearing God, it’s “so that we may serve you reverently. Is that nuts or what?”
“Well, I don’t fear God,” said Lady.
“Are you crazy? I’m utterly terrified of God, and I don’t
even believe in Him. Imagine if I did? I couldn’t get out of bed in the
morning!”
“Stop saying you don’t believe in God,” said Lady, “since
you perfectly well do.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you couldn’t be the kind of person you are if you
didn’t.”
Well, every discussion with Lady has many corners, most of
which I back myself into.
“Look, you’re the poet, not I. Why don’t you write
the damn psalms?”
“You gonna paint houses?”
“I could certainly paint houses!”
“Yes, but would anybody buy them?”
“Well, you didn’t ask me that….”
“Get down to work,” she told me, “and remember, you have to
use the word ‘Selah,’ every once in a while.”
So I do:
Psalm 1
Unto the hills I
sought you,
Treading on paths
foreseen by ancients
Smelling the green
of spring pounced
From the gray of
winter. Selah.
On the banks of the
rivers I searched for you,
As fish swam your
glory and wind whistled your adoration.
I drank and was made
more thirsty; my tongue
Clew to the roof of
my mouth, and yet I praised you.
Athirst, I sought
you in the deserts, and flung myself
To cool in the
ardent sun,
Which shaded every
live thing, but not I.
Not I, who seek you
more each day,
As you elude me,
leaving only a laugh in the air,
And a smirk on the
path.
Yes, you dance with
whores and drink with thieves,
But I, dear Lord? I,
who stand before the table you just left,
Staring at the
crumbs
You have forbidden
me to eat?
My God, and I have
ten years of this stuff?
