ISSUE: Spring 1999
He looketh on the earth and it trembleth;
he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.
I love to see God, clothed with light as with a garment,
carpentering beams of balconies under a cosmic sea
and clothing them to their foundation with his deeps
as with a garment, too. This psalm, and most of them,
my mother’s mother had by heart. Forgetful, I read
out loud from her husband’s Bible: I will sing praise
to my God while I have my being. My father’s mother’s
people sang in Hebrew, words with tunes their forebears
kept in mind, how many generations?—three, four
score. Maybe I’m dreaming. I may wake up yet,
and sing praise of my birthright in their tongue.
