Writing his poetry while seated on ash and blood, the writer of the biblical book of Lamentations finds just the syllables for his poignant scream:
He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and made me cower in ashes;
my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness is;
so I say, ‘Gone is my glory,
and all that I had hoped for from the LORD.’The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
is wormwood and gall!
My soul continually thinks of it
and is bowed down within me.
One wonders how many millions of readers—each placed in a moment as real and significant as that of the poet who lamented Zion’s devastation—have found in such stark realism the descriptors of their own loss, the vocabulary of their bereft agony.
This would be enough to justify these poems, for we borrow words most needily when our throat chokes up and the words we thought we knew remain stuck in our lungs. (more…)
Canter Bridge 