LAMENTATIONS CHAPTER 1 - 5

BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS

Some say the style and content of this book
Belies the author Jeremiah’s look.
It may be so, though in the aftermath
Of the destruction, he might take the path
Of formal lamentation. I have heard
The Finnish sort of laments that have stirred
The Finnish hearts for centuries and note
That they are filled with formula of rote.
Each folk has its own pedestal and ware:
Finns weep better than others on the stair.
The book of such laments, though filled with such
Formalities still now prevail to touch
The heart of stone with grief and grief as much.
The sharpening of gems releases care.

LAMENTATIONS 1

1 Ah, does the town sit solitary,
Among her once were people merry!
Alas, she is a widow now,
A great one once and at the prow
Against nations, princess of states,
At last set to tribute in rates.
2 By night she weeps tears on her cheeks;
Between her lovers vainly seeks
Boys to comfort, while all her friends
Belong with traitors to their ends,
Become as enemies in cliques.
3 Gone to captivity is Judah,
Gone into her affliction ruder,
Greater to be her servitude,
Guest now among a heathen brood,
Going no rest from all the crude
Guys in pursuit of her with beaks.
4 Do not the ways of Zion mourn
Dumbfounded none come to the bourn
Due solemn festivals: her gates
Desolate all made in estates;
Dumbly priests sigh and virgins fail,
Disaster, bitterness her tale.
5 Her adversaries are the chief,
Her enemies prosper like thief,
Has YHWH afflicted her for all
Her sins transgressing at the wall;
Her offspring in captivity
Have gone before the enemy.
6 When from the daughter of Zion
Will all her beauty gone and done
With her princes become like harts
Without pasture; without their carts
Why do they go before pursuer
Weakened in sight of every viewer!

I might weep for the devastations wrought
By the Khmer Rouge, or Hutler’s fateful spot,
Or what Rwanda saw of blood and more.
I might weep for the millions lost in lore
When missionaries found the New World’s shore.
I might weep for my own of blasting fame,
The Covenanters for no better name.
It’s not Jerusalem alone that sees
The blood run down beneath the ample breeze.
The marsh Arabs, some perhaps of the spawn
Of those who attacked Your city at dawn,
Have lately been annihilated by
The modern fanes of Babylon and sky.
There’s always room to weep upon one’s knees.

7 Zeal in Jerusalem minds of
Zenith of her affliction’s glove,
Zigzaging griefs contrasting with
Zithers by Muhammadan myth,
Zones ancient, when her people fell
Zing in the hand of foes to tell,
Zenanahs without aid where those
Zestful mocked at her Sabbaths’ glows.
8 How has Jerusalem now sinned!
Honoured no more scattered by wind,
Having seen her in nakedness,
Hell-bent on despising her dress,
Hoarse in her sighs, turned back to mess.
9 The filth is in her skirts to send
That memory up to the last end;
Therefore she came down wonderfully;
Thanking no comforter to see.
Then YHWH, see my affliction bide:
There the enemy’s magnified.
10 Yet the foe spreads his hand upon
Yesteryear’s Muhammadans drawn;
Yelling, she saw heathen go in
Yon sanctuary, whom for sin
You have commanded they should not
Yield in Your congregation’s plot.
11 Complaining, all her people sigh,
Coming to find their bread, or try;
Committing to loss Muhammad,
Clean for meat to relieve the sad;
Consider, YHWH and see, for I
Clamour in my own vileness’ sty.

The Muhammadan myth mocks Sabbaths to this day,
And there have even been cases astray
Where Jews reverting to Islam betray
The Sabbath rest that transmits men its ray.
Beloved, reward the Ethiopian
Who has regard to Sabbath as he can,
And bless the Shi’ite who remember to
Cut hair and nails before the Friday crew
Join in the prayer of One in praise of You.
Give each one her reward, who stops to find
The clear waters of Sabbath while the wined
Continue in the jungle law that makes
The weaker the dupe of the king’s mistakes.
Beloved, on blessèd manna I have dined.

12 Like nothing to you, passers-by?
Look and see if any folk cry
Lost in such sorrow as am I,
Left in grief by the hand of YHWH,
Long is the day of His wrath due.
13 Mandating fire into my bones,
Making it win against my stones;
Matting a net beneath my feet,
More has he turned me to defeat;
Making me desolate and faint
Matching day’s length without restraint.
14 Now the yoke of my wickedness
Nothing from his hand can outpress;
Netted in wreaths and come to my
Neck: He has made my strength to die;
New in their hands delivered me,
Not to rise but by YHWH’s decree.
15 Stepping upon all my strong men,
Summoning assembly again,
Stinging against me, Lord would crush
Singly my young men in the rush:
So YHWH’s stepped on the virgin girl,
Sung as daughter of Zion’s churl,
Slung as in a winepress in flush.
16 I weep for all these things and my
Eye runs down with the tears to sigh,
All parted are comforters mine;
In desolation my spawn’s vine,
Enemies have prevailed in sign.

Mandate, Beloved, the fire within my bones
As I pass by the churlish, earthly thrones
And take the fire of love to You that I
Find raging on the earth, beneath the sky.
Mandate, Beloved, the quenchless grief of grace,
The night and day search for Your divine face,
And as I whirl all about the craven earth,
Quench my thirst not with water or with dearth.
Beloved, the haven of attack and blast
Of arms is more than I’ve bargained to cast,
And while the fevered run is here to last,
I turn in smouldering silence toward Your way,
Stop yearning and remain in quiet play
To find that You are still in roundelay.

17 Forth spread the hands of Zion’s prayer,
Pulled up are stakes of comfort there;
Full well has YHWH commanded that
Poor Jacob’s surrounded on mat,
Flung down is Jerusalem now,
Pointed at like a menstruous cow.
18 Saintly is YHWH, though I’ve rebelled,
Sinned against His commandment held;
See my sorrow and hear, all folk,
Sunken are my virgins by stroke,
Severed and borne captive all my
Sweet young men, I pray you and sigh.
19 Called for my lovers, they deceived;
Came priest and elder and received
City to be their own ghost town;
Coming like scavengers on down.
20 Rise, YHWH, see, I am in distress;
Regard my bowels’ troubled ingress;
Returned within me is my heart;
Rebelled have I in grievous part;
Realms everywhere bow to the sword,
Reward at home is death’s reward.
21 Sighing of mine is heard abroad,
Sign of comfort comes not on sod;
Song of my trouble’s heard by foe;
Some joy it is to them to show;
Summon Your day, they will be low.
22 Their wickedness comes before You;
Till them by their transgressions due;
Toll of my sighs is great in view;
The heart is faint beyond my rue.

Jerusalem knew every sort of prayer,
But there is one that is beyond compare:
The spreading out of hands devoid of ware
In supplication to Your noble heart.
Beloved, I turn toward the city’s part
And spread my hands with palms up to the start,
And find that silence is Your answer still,
A comfort and a warning on the hill.
Summon Your day, Beloved, or then remain
In Your unspoken knowing of terrain,
While I bring from the night David’s new song
As ancient as the Meccan pilgrim throng,
As quiet as the dark before the dawn,
As fresh as the sprung light where I have lain.

LAMENTATIONS 2

1 Anger of YHWH covers in veil
All the daughter of Zion’s travail,
And cast down from the heights to earth
Account of Israel’s beauty’s worth,
And he did not remember then
Aught of His footstool when again
Anger flashed from His divine berth.
2 By swallowing Jacob’s folk YHWH
Brooks no pity upon its crew:
Because His wrath was great he threw
Both strongholds and the daughter too
Brought forth in Judah; and so He’s
Brought them down to the ground to freeze;
Bound in pollution kingdom and
Broken the princes of the land.
3 Gone all the power of Israel
Gutted by His fierce anger’s spell:
Great is His right hand raised to quell
Grasp of the enemy, to break
Gap of flames against Jacob’s stake,
Ghastly in burning all in wake.
4 Does He not bent his bow like foe?
Double to enemy He’d go
Down with his fight hand raise to kill
Dozens of Muhammadans’ spring
Dowsing tents of Zion to fill,
Drumming His wrath like anything.
5 How YHWH’s become an enemy:
He’s swallowed Israel in spree,
He’s swallowed up her palaces;
Having destroyed His strongholds’ whiz,
Hiding no increase from the spawn
Hoped for from Judah of outdrawn
Hell of mourning, lamenting’s swan.
6 With shaking like a vine he vents
Wrath on His tabernacle’s tents,
Violently destroying place
Where the assembly came to pace;
Why has YHWH caused the solemn feast
With its sabbath to go decreased
Without remembrance in Zion’s way,
While king and priest despise the sway
Where His wrath comes to meet the day?
7 Zapped off His altar has now YHWH,
Zeal to hate His own temple’s due,
Zest of the foe He brings in view,
Zone of her palace walls; they’ve made
Zoom on the house of YHWH waylaid,
Zipped as in day of grand parade.

Zion is cast down from the heights to earth.
That’s something You have never held as worth
Correcting. I myself have seen the scene
And found that Mount Zion’s a thing between
A gully and a hill. No mountain’s there.
Just a dry brook that sinks beneath its share.
I’ve seen some mountains in my time, I swear,
And they were grander than the rise up to
The gate of the Messiah still in view.
Try Mont Blanc for a start, its white head high
And visible against a clean, clear sky
Beyond Geneva and the lake as far
As the road takes along the Rhone by car.
I might as well say one candle’s a star.

8 Has YHWH intended to destroy
His wall of Zion’s daughter’s joy?
He’s stretched out a line, not withdrawn
Hand from destroying at the dawn:
He made the rampart and the wall
Have pain lamenting, go in thrall.
9 To sink her gates into the ground
The bars are destroyed round and round;
Taken among the Gentiles are
The king and her princes and star:
The law’s no more, her prophets too
Tend no more vision from Lord YHWH.
10 Yet sitting on the ground the old
Yobs of Zion’s daughter are sold
Yogis of silence; they have thrown
Yards of dust on their heads in groan,
Yanked sackcloth round themselves in hem,
Young virgins of Jerusalem
Yield to hang down their heads to stone.
11 Consumed by tears have been my eyes,
Contorted bowels, poured out in guise
Concealing earth my liver fails,
Caused by the breach my folk entails;
Confrères of infants faint upon
City streets hoping for dawn.
12 Languishing they beg mothers for
Last flour and grape-juice in the store,
Left like the wounded in the square,
Last breath on mothers’ breasts laid bare.
13 Make me know what witness to bring,
Minded to equate with you, sing
My comfort to you, virgin thing
Mated to Zion? For your wound’s great
Matching the sea, who cures your state?
14 Now have your prophets prophesied
Nothing but falsehood to your pride;
Nor have they revealed on your side
Nettling iniquity to bide,
Nor brought you to penance in tide;
Nothing but vain messages and
Nought but cause to drive from the land.

The prophecy of falsehood, it is sure,
Despite the language elevated, pure.
The prophecy of peace throughout the world
While keeping law of jungle still unfurled
Cannot succeed. There must be rule of state
That makes the non-negotiable in rate
Of rights for the disenfranchised of late.
Without that revolution will come soon,
There is no force of violence in boon
That can prevent uprising to the moon.
Beloved, bring Sabbath as a measured thing
To keep in place the president and king,
And show that right of Decalogue is fair,
Not to be twiddled with and sent to spare.

15 So everyone that passes by
Stops to clap their hands at your cry;
Some hiss and some wag their head at
Such spawn on Jerusalem’s mat,
Saying ”Is this the city that
Some call the pinnacle that sat
Sweetly in beauty, all earth’s joy?
16 Perversely your foes speak attack,
Pursing lips, gnashing teeth to clack,
Proclaiming, “We’ve swallowed her up,
Praying for this day come to sup,
Pre-empting what we found in stack.”
17 And YHWH has done what He had planned,
Over the word of His command
Anciently spoken: He’s thrown down
And has not pitied any town,
Ordered the enemy to sing
Over you, He’s set the horn’s ring
Of your attackers with a frown.
18 So their heart cried to the Lord,
Said “O wall of Zion’s adored,
Set tears to run down like a stream,
Spilling day and by the night’s dream,
Save yourself no rest, do not let
Cease apple of your eye upset.
19 Quickly, get up, cry in the night,
Quiver to start the watches right
Quenching not heart poured in His sight
Quantities rushed like water sprite,
Questing the Lord for children’s life
Quelled by hunger in the street’s strife.
20 Regard, O YHWH, consider who
Receives what You have done in due.
Raw foetus flesh shall women eat,
Reduced the priest and prophet meet
Refused in the Lord’s temple pew?
21 See how young and old lie abroad,
Streets covered with virgins and stout
Single young men sword-slain about,
Slain in Your anger, You have killed,
Scattered without pity the stilled.
22 Then You’ve summoned as to a feast
Terrors around about increased,
That in the day of YHWH’s wrath none
Together escape or stay spun;
Those I have swaddled and brought up,
They are consumed as My foes sup.

You summon terror as to wedding feast.
Does she wear white or black, the smooth or creased?
Does she come tripping lightly and with smile
To make her coming sinister with guile?
You summon terror, send a note in chance
With RSVP if she wants to dance,
With envelop perfumed and purple ink.
Does terror come to settle on the brink?
Beloved, the silent steps of terror still
Turn round an earth where many eat their fill
And more it seems go to sleep in the dark,
With hunger gnawing tightly at the spark
Of darling sinking quietly to find
If terror’s allowed some days to be blind.

LAMENTATIONS 3

1 Affliction I’ve seen by the rod
Of His wrath, by the wrath of God.
2 Among dark paths He’s led me out,
Without light wandering about.
3 Against me He has turned all day.
4 Both flesh and skin he’s bold to lay
Decrepit, broken bones for pay.
5 Building around me gall and gout,
6 Billeting me in darkened room
As ancient dead to meet their doom.
7 Greatly He’s hedged me round so I
Cannot get out, He’s held me by
A heavy chain beneath the sky.
8 Grow louder do my cry and shout,
My prayers He comes to shut them out.
9 Graven stones enclose my ways here,
He makes my paths crooked in fear.
10 Down in ambush like a bear He
Waits for me, and He secretly
Hides like a lion for the prey.

Those who think Jesus is God, that is, You,
Sometimes relate the blessèd man in view
Of lion on the track of prey or not;
The lion of the tribe of Judah’s plot.
But I have never yet heard tell or sing
That You are like a bear for anything.
If you are like a bear, I wonder if
You are a black or white one in the stiff.
Beloved, it does not matter what beast can
Best describe you by form, character, plan,
But colour is a thing of great import.
We creatures are a very racist sort.
So if you are a bear, Beloved, take note
To keep Your colour fair and well afloat.

11 Desolation turns round my way
And pulls me into pieces where
He makes my desolation bare.
12 Divined by His bow bent, He sets
Me as the arrow’s mark for bets.
13 He’s shot my kidneys with the straight
Arrows from His quiver in rate.
14 How I’ve become the butt of song
To all my people all day long.
15 He has filled me with bitterness,
He’s made me drink wormwood’s caress.
16 With grit He’s broken my teeth too,
And fed me on ashes in brew.
17 Where have you taken me from peace?
I have forgotten spawn’s increase,
18 While I said ”My strength and my hope
Is perished from YHWH and His scope.”
19 Zeal in affliction and despair
Remember, wormwood and gall there.
20 Zones of remembrance still repair
To humble my soul everywhere.

Unless You are a primitive select
That anywhere around the world unwrecked
Uses a bow, then arrows at the sling
Make me think that You are a red-skin king.
You need not live in tipi, ride a horse,
That’s all a recent Plains affair, of course.
More likely You live in a longhouse where
The family extended come to share
The maize, the beans and squash and stop to find
The faces are as false as they’re confined.
Beloved, the ancient manners of the race,
The ancient tongue, the memories of grace,
Are worthy of Your power and throne and face
Even above the burning fires and mace.

21 Zestfully I consider this,
That is why I have hope to kiss.
22 Hidden in YHWH’s mercies we’re not
Consumed, His compassions fail not.
23 How they are renewed with the day:
Great is Your faithfulness in sway!
24 Here is YHWH now my heritage,
I say, therefore my hope is sage.
25 That YHWH is good to those who wait
For Him, and seek Him at the gate,
26 To hope for good and quietly
Wait for YHWH’s salvation to be:
27 This is good for a man to bear
The yoke of his youth everywhere.
28 In silence and alone he sits,
Because he’s borne it on his wits.
29 Into the dust he lays his lip,
In hope of any fellowship.
30 Indeed, he gives his cheek to one
Who strikes him, he’s filled to the gun
With the reproach he has not won.
31 Cast off the Lord will not when done.

They told me Lamentations had no word
Of comfort or of positive conferred,
But here is one that’s greater than another
In any work of writing by a brother.
Great is Your faithfulness indeed I find
Despite the whirling of the worldly blind.
Great is Your faithfulness, though humankind
Is caught in treachery on every hand.
Beloved, I flee from friend and brother and
From my own self to seek in Your command
The substance of all faith, the hope of dreams,
The golden lights of truth, the silver streams
That flicker through the mist of swirling white
That joins and separates me from the right.

32 Cause grief He may, yet He will stay
In His compassion by the sway
Of His mercies in kindness’ way.
33 Can He afflict by His own will
Or grieve the sons of men here still,
34 Lest He crush under His feet all
The prisoners in the earth’s thrall?
35 Leaving aside the right of man
Before the face of Elyon’s scan?
36 Lacking justice in His judgement,
Has the Lord not given the scent?
37 May any command to take place
What the Lord does not make in trace?
38 Mouth of Elyon is source of all,
Both good and evil on the ball.
39 Man living may complain, but what
Use is it before punished glut?
40 Now let us search and try our ways,
And turn again to YHWH in praise.
41 Needs be we lift up heart and hands
To El who in the heavens stands.

The charismatic fools around this place
Lift up their waving hands to swing a trace
About the empty air they think is filled
With Your spirit just because beaked and billed
Can utter nonsense on the slaughter ground.
Beloved, judge those who muddy divine sound.
This word’s one written in the eastern shore
In centuries long past, the lifted lore
Of hands was not the Baalish swing they love,
But raising hand palms out, not shot above,
But at the level of the ears to say
Allah is greater than their earthy sway,
Their evil arms and bombs, and under way
Attacks on safe civilians asked to pay.

42 Now we’ve transgressed and have rebelled,
You have not pardoned though You’ve quelled.
43 So You’ve spread wrath on us to drive,
You’ve killed not pitying alive.
44 Setting a cloud before Your face
You keep our prayers out of the place.
45 Scruff refuse among all the folk
You’ve made us and put under yoke.
46 Picked up by foes with open maw
We find ourselves under their claw.
47 Prophecy comes to us in fear,
A snare and a destruction near.
48 Pouring torrents of tears, my eye
Mourns defeat of my people nigh.
49 Eye trickling tears, it does not cease,
There is no coming of release,
50 Until YHWH looks down from the sky.
51 Acting against my heart, my eye
Regards spawn of my city cry.
52 Sorely like a bird my foes come
To chase me without cause or crumb.
53 Surrounding my life in a pit,
They cast a stone here where I sit.
54 Streams overflowed above my head,
“And I have been cut off,” I said.
55 Quickly I call upon Your name,
O YHWH, from the low pit in claim.
56 Quavering You have heard my voice,
Do not hide Your ear from my choice,
Hear my cry, so I may rejoice.
57 Come near at day, I called on You,
You said “Do not fear, just be true.”

After laying the blame on You, the man
Tells me not to fear, just be true to plan.
Today the world finds that You only bear
Love unconditional to all the fair.
I doubt the word of ancient wisdom there,
I doubt the love without conditions’ span,
I doubt that I can live a day at all
Or even one hour outside of the thrall
Of fear, given I doubt both hill and hall.
But let me, my Beloved, be ever true,
Despite the circumstance, to Your own view,
Through cloud of information in review,
Through failure of finance and custom’s rue.
Keep me still whirling while I’m on the ball.

58 Replying, Lord, You plead my cause,
You have redeemed my life from claws.
59 Remember, YHWH, You’ve seen my wrong,
So judge my cause, for me be strong.
60 Rightly You see their vengeance all,
Their imaginations in thrall.
61 Song of reproach You’ve heard, O YHWH,
All their imaginations’ brew,
62 Sizzling lips rising against me,
Device against me constantly.
63 See when they sit, when they get up,
I am the music in their cup.
64 Take vengeance upon them, O YHWH,
According to the work they do.
65 Tender a cover on their heart
To curse them from the very start.
66 Trample them down and so destroy
In wrath under YHWH’s sky employ.

Beloved, I’ve never heard from You reply.
The air is silent when You’re going by.
I’ve never heard You plead my cause at all,
And like so many others in the stall
It bears some pleading from the wrath of both
The small and great who great me with an oath.
I do not know what’s in Your lofty mind,
What You remember of the good and kind
Or of the wicked show upon the earth.
So judge my cause, Beloved, there is no other
To do so, though You are not a good mother,
Always out of sight, never with a word
Of comfort that at least I could have heard.
In life and lamentation, all is blurred.

LAMENTATIONS 4

1 Ah, how dim has the gold become!
The most fine gold changed into scum!
The sanctuary stones poured out
At the head of the streets about.
2 Best sons of the fortress are like
Fine gold, esteemed like pots to strike
At the hand at the potter’s wheel!
3 Given to sea monsters is to nurse
At the breast their young ones perverse,
But the daughter of my folk stands
Cruel as the ostrich on the sands.
4 Dipped is the tongue of sucking child
Stuck to the roof of mouth in wild
Thirst, and the young ones beg for bread
And there’s no one to deal for dread.
5 How desolate upon the streets
Are those who did feed upon treats,
Those who were laid on silken bed
Are now led to the dung and fed.

The early Advents sought to find the start
Of sanctuary in a golden part,
A real thing, not a ghostly vacuous fart.
The Hellenistic spirit, hand of Rome,
In stealth has stolen all that faith and loam
And spiritualized everything until
The sea monsters alone drink milk and swill.
The pen of good Uriah fails to show
The blind hearts now the righter way to go,
And all look to scholastic rule and air,
Denying golden street and harp as fair.
Gold was once flesh of gods, and so is still
To bankers who flick pens at wealth at will,
And sign away to faith of Rome a bill.

6 What sin of my folk’s daughter rises,
Above Sodom’s punishment prises,
That was thrown down and suddenly
With none to stay with hands or plea.
7 Zealots of Nazarites were pure
Like snow, whiter than milk’s allure,
More ruddy in body than stone
Of rubies, polished and to hone
Like sapphire, a gem bright and sure.
8 How their face is blacker than coal,
None recognizes them in toll.
9 Those killed by the sword win a fate
Better than those who stay to wait
The death of hunger, for they pine
Away, stricken through want of vine
And field that became desolate.
10 Yet tender women’s hand have boiled
Their own spawn, they became meat toiled
On the destruction of the spawn
Of my people without the dawn.
11 Can YHWH accomplish all His wrath?
He’s poured out anger on our path,
He’s kindled fire in Zion’s way,
Destroyed foundations in a day.
12 Let kings of earth, all those who dwell
Upon the earth, who could not tell
The foe and enemy should come
To enter in Jerusalem
Believe the destruction in sum.
13 Many the sins her prophets did,
Iniquities that her priests hid,
Shedding the blood of the just there.
14 Now wandering like blind men and bare
In the streets, they’ve spoiled all with blood,
So none could touch their garments’ crud.
15 Sound loud to them, “Depart, unclean,
Depart, depart, touch not the scene,”
When they fled out to wander there,
They said among the heathen’s share,
That they shall no more sojourn there.
16 Pelting of YHWH’s divided them,
He will no longer regard them;
They did not have respect for priest,
Showed no regard for elders’ feast.
17 Our eyes fail watching in vain help,
In watching we have found the whelp
Of a nation that could not save.
18 So they hunt our steps to the grave,
So we cannot go in our streets,
Our end is near, and our day greets
The consummation to deprave.
19 Come persecutors faster than
The eagles of the sky to scan,
They follow us upon the hills,
They ambush us in desert rills.
20 Rushing breath of our nostrils fell
In their pits, YHWH’s Messiah tell,
Of whom we said “Beneath his spell
We’ll live among the heathen well.”
21 Sing and be glad, O Edom’s spawn,
Who live in the land of Uz drawn,
The cup will also come to you,
You will be drunken with the brew,
And naked in that day come too.
22 The punishment of your sin’s done,
O daughter of Zion unspun,
He’ll not take you captive again,
He’ll deal with you sin too, O den
Of Edom, He’ll show what you’ve done.

The prophet Jeremiah, if he came
To write the Lamentations of his fame,
Predicted the jet fighter with this word,
Faster than eagles flying in absurd
And wicked show of power and hate.
As beautiful as eagles, see them wait
On ship decks armed with runways in the sun,
Full of the expectation of the gun.
Whether with great insight or inspiration,
Or with the realizing human ration
Is always evil and predictable,
The prophet sees the future with a pull.
The eagle sight is also Gospel’s spell,
How often it too has been a life’s knell.

LAMENTATIONS 5

1 Remember, YHWH, what’s come on us,
Consider and see all the fuss.
2 Our heritage is given away
To strangers, and our houses’ sway
To foreigners who do not pay.
3 We’re orphans and we’re fatherless,
Our mothers are in widows’ dress.
4 We’ve drunk our water bought for pay,
Our wood is sold to us each day.
5 Our necks are under persecution,
We work for no rest in solution.
6 We’ve given Egyptians our own power,
Assyrians so we might scour
For bread to feed in distribution.

A few thousand of Jews in days gone by
Are nothing but a drop beneath the sky
Of all the dispossessed. I hear my own
Native American without a groan
Sink quietly, with a forgotten sigh.
The millions that were scattered, felled, and slain
Among the red men for the slighter gain
Of furs and lands mean nothing here or then.
They are among the most forgotten men.
Beloved, if You keep memory alive
Within Your heart, what matter if You strive
In Your eternity? The past is done
And gone, no more to see the sun.
One shoah succeeds others on the run.

7 Our ancestors have sinned and failed,
And we have borne results entailed.
8 Servants have ruled us, there is none
To save us from their power that won.
9 For fear of our lives we fetch bread,
Because of sword in desert led.
10 Our skin was scorched black as in heat
Of an oven without retreat
From terrors of famine replete.
11 They ravished Zion’s women there,
The maids of Judah’s cities fair.
12 Princes are hung up by their hand,
Faces of elders bear their brand.
13 They took young men for studs in fee,
Young children fell beneath degree
Of wooden burdens constantly.
14 The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from music to rate.
15 The joy of our heart fails at last,
Our dance is turned to mourning cast.
16 The crown has fallen from our head,
Woe to us who have sinned instead!

There’s hardly any on the earth today,
And hardly in the past of ruthless sway
That is not herded in some and same way
Into the famine, ravishment or power
Of prostitution on a fainting hour.
Why weep for fast reality at all?
Why not rejoice within to see the thrall
Of dandelion thrust up from the black pit
Of asphalt to bloom without hope or wit?
Beloved, I shut myself within, without
And touch the silence of my own with shout,
With shout of silence in a skull laid bare
To sun and wind and rain with nothing there.
I mutter words none understand to swear.

17 And this is why our heart is faint,
And why our eyes dim with restraint.
18 For Zion’s mountain desolate,
The foxes walk there with a mate.
19 But You, O YHWH, remain for ever,
Your throne and Your every endeavour
From generations consummate.
20 Why do You constantly forget,
Forsaking us so long in set?
21 Turn us to You, O YHWH, and we
Shall be turned, so renew and see
Our days as in ancient degree.
22 For if you utterly reject,
You’ve been wroth against us unchecked.

If Jeremiah asked the question then,
And heard no answer by his faith again,
What hope is there now when I raise a cry
In questioning before the troubled sky?
Beloved, I raise the question till I die,
And You may speak or not as best You choose,
But I shall breathe blasphemies as I muse
Until light floods the heart that You abuse.
Beloved, the help and hope of song and pine
Resettle after every prayer of mine,
And though I shake me like a dervish dog,
The fluff remains to itch me in the fog.
Grief or the acquiescent power to stay,
I rise and sing on peach and every day.

AUTHOR: THOMAS G. MCELWAIN

Copyright © 2007 Adams & McElwain Publishers and Thomas McElwain First Published in two volumes, The Beloved and I 2005, and Led of the Beloved, 2006. Second Edition, 2010 Third and revised edition, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this verse commentary on the sacred Scriptures may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from publisher.

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