The Darkling Psalter

Andy Patton
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  • RELIGION & SPIRITUALITY
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Listen to creative renditions of the Psalms.

  1. 3D AGO

    Psalm 2—Don’t ask for answers; ask for waiting. You barely know the meaning of things.

    For more renditions of the Psalms, visit darklingsalter.substack.com.  Text of the rendition: Psalm 2—Don’t ask for answers; ask for waiting. You barely know the meaning of things.Why do the lost nations rage and rally  Devices against the living God? The kings of the earth take their stand, saying,   “Enough! Break these bindings. God is only a consuming fire. He will turn his hand against us. So we became stoneburners. So we split love seven ways, Were cast in gold, were heaven itself. We plotted and raged. We spoke in tongues. We saw secret things. It cost us our lives, but God, we were beautiful.   How were we supposed to love That thunderous light?  The auguries were all indifferent, And time tumbles pips up. If you go back enough It is all just dice.”   The Lord of all the earth Laughed in his wild water heart and said,   “For all your talk, you still missed Every chance to change you got. You were unbreakable, untouchable. You clad yourself and seethed. Anymore, you barely need a reason To give yourself to things  You can’t come back from. You could never pick up the hot coals  Inside yourself and kiss them. Even still, you could have lived If you had learned to take inside yourself The reprisals of your friends  When they braved your dagger-bladed smile. I wanted to gather you together And walk you through the lanes of longsuffering, But you wouldn’t. So now you have headaches And suffer through all you wanted. So now you are wires and exposed bone And fever and heartstring. So now the day wrings mute confessions out of you And you stay in bed so no one will hear them.   Then, the Lord said to me,    “Today, you are my son And I am your father forever. The throne of God is God’s alone But it was always shared. I made the earth to be given— Ask, and it is yours, But you must also take these enemies of mine. Break them like pottery; Bind them back like pieces Of your own broken body.   So don’t ask for answers;  Ask for waiting. You barely know the meaning of things. God’s wrath burns at a touch. The shelter of his kindness Is the only shelter left. If you are lucky  and wise and warned, What you get is quiet. What you get is your life. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    4 min

  2. MAY 7

    Psalm 8—I am thistledown the wind has taken, yet the lives of stars are nothing to me.

    Psalm 8—I am thistledown the wind has taken, yet the lives of stars are nothing to me.   Lord, even the air echoes your name. The river thrums with it. The bright mountains tower it out. The holy birds sing it dawnward. Yet, the earth and the whole heavens Can’t contain the barest sum of you.   When I look at the works of your hands, I see how everything is poised At the start of its becoming. Fat mat tongues push greenly  From the snow soil like a rising from the dead. Overhead, wild and unseen singers in the trees Chorus and break cover,  As if every leaf became a bird at once. The wind blows from another world And the clouds go cartwheeling by.   What am I that you are mindful of me? You have made me haunted and hallowed, Branded, bent, and fallow; Lattice of heartstring and sinew, A long and weary marionette; Hawk above, snake below, Mouse afield and running.   Still, you gave me the wild world, And crowned me with your own crown. I am thistledown the wind has taken, Yet the lives of stars are nothing to me.   O God, how bright and vast is your name in all the earth. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    2 min

  3. APR 29

    Psalm 38—I chewed black thoughts like cracked bones and made a meal of my sin’s marrow.

    Psalm 38   God, in your anger, don’t set me aside. I suffered the length of your chastening. Your arrows have fallen all around me. Your hand pressed me into the ground. You heaved my heart whole over.   I am all raw wounds. My heart is scoured bright as brass— Abraded, burnished, blazing hot Under the blast of your wrath. My peace is choked Because I chewed black thoughts Like cracked bones and made  A meal of my sin’s marrow. My wrongs have doubled back on me And I can’t bear them.   My rot flesh hangs in strips. The fester stinks. All day, I ​​shuffle through drifts of sorrow. My feet are bleeding in my shoes As I walk the long lanes of grief. My prayers fall in soft sift That drops to muddy slosh behind me. A fire has made a home in my flesh. I keep patting my chest to put it out, But the fever won’t quit. My bones are brittle as coral.  My eyes shine like opals, And I hold my limbs with care As if they might snap off.  I’m bound and bowed and brought low.  My body bends to the ground As if I am already grinning down Into my grave.   None of this is secret. It happens under the open face of heaven. You see me, Lord. You hear the long lament  Singing out of me all day  And through the black hours of night. Those friends I loved stand away. Even my brothers press their hands to their mouths And shake their heads. But those who want to hurt me draw near. Their thoughts   chasms, But their words are all bright as knives  That leave fresh red ribbons In my mind when I think of them.   I would fill my mouth with arguments And my ears with my own defense, But instead, I am dumb and stuttering and stunned. Lord, you know how I would trade  My heart for any hope I could lay hands on If it promised me a way out. So set your silence on me.  Staunch me, stop me, Hold me hard at bay. Give me the stillness that isn’t peace, But has the seeds of peace in it.    You are the last word I’m waiting for. If you are not my defense, I have no defense. I know your answers start Before I know to ask. I know they take a long time  And aren’t made of words, but of moments  Stacked one on another.   I am ready to fall. My pain is set plainly before me. I can hardly hide it, Nor keep it a secret, Nor find the smallest, furtive, Fugitive minute to forget it. I didn’t know this is what I bargained for When I gathered my folly To my chest in great-armed heaps. Visit me even here, Lord. I want to begin again. Show me what is good Even if it makes this all the worse.   Curb the joy of those Who rejoice when I fall. I will tell all my wrongs.  I will hold nothing back. I will foreswear all the misbegotten loves That have made a home in my heart.   Do not cast me off, but stay with me. Even now, rush to help me. Level out a rollicking, bracing, lavisher love.  My chevalier in stride, have your way! Cast back black sorrow. Know no bounds. Breach and breast  High over every hindrance. Show me what it feels like  To be safe and saved. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    5 min

  4. APR 23

    Psalm 27—Where things are barren, but he is near.

    The Lord is my light in dark And my salvation in danger. What other force  should make me fear? The Lord is my shelter. How could dread ever dog me? What fear could ever reave me? Who could harrow me and hem me in? When my enemies teemed Snapping and gnashing at me, They staggered and fell  and were swept away. Even if an army encamps around me; Even if I am encircled with stratagems; If I read it wrong; if I didn’t see it coming; Even if war rises like a tide around me, First to my knees, then to my waist, Then surging over me  To sweep my loves away, I will not fear.   I have asked one thing from the Lord, A request that waits beneath My heart’s hardest hopes: That I might dwell in the house of the Lord. I want to see his face; To feel his delight; to learn his ways. When the day of trouble  Finds me and misery calls, He will hide me, wrap me, tuck me away. He will lead me into the wilderness Where things are barren, but he is near, Where he can whisper How it is and was and will be. He will take me to a rock, To high and holy ground, And I will remove my shoes and pray. I will remember how long I was lost And how hard it is to come back. I will sing, yes, and beat my chest  because joy has found me.   So hear me when I cry, Lord, And be gracious to me. Answer me because I am smaller Than I thought I’d ever be. When you said to seek your face, My heart said Yes  Though I barely knew the way. Don’t hide from me. Turn toward me, fly to me. Be my help again as you have been. You are my last salvation; If you forsake me, what is left? Even if my father and mother leave me, You will gather me in.   Teach me your way; I am here to learn. Lead me on a level path; I want to walk with you. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    3 min

  5. APR 21

    How Do You Write the Darkling Psalter?

    Listen to Andy talk about the process of creating the renditions of the Psalms in this interview with Leah Boden from the Mind Gallery (https://modernmissmason.substack.com) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    45 min

  6. APR 18

    Psalm 1—I will layer ring on ring as God’s years mark loops in me.

    Psalm One   I came to the garden to listen and wait, To walk in the way, to leave my mistakes. The word growled in me day and night. I writhed and raged. I moaned,  And meditated, and suffered. I prayed the seed’s prayer at night, alone, And something grew in me.   The word made root room. It branched in me and doubled. Dead branches sheared clean. Green growth forked  And fruited, plush as peaches— Costless, changeless, brimming. The water finally ran clear  And free everywhere I looked.   The wicked aren’t like this. The years they hoped to harvest Dry and chaff all away.  They crisp and go dead. Then the wind takes them.   But I will layer ring on ring As God’s years mark loops in me. I’ll listen for the whisper of psalms,  And begin what there is to begin. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    2 min

  7. APR 9

    Psalm 43—It wasn’t away from my wreck that I found you, but in the middle of it.

    You were never supposed To let any of this happen. Why did you allow that dog grief To bound me down and  Stripe my body ragged? Why did you give me these ghost days That I wish had never happened? All day a fear runs  Like a song through my head. Is says: Faith is a fool’s game; Faith is razor-bladed. If you are my refuge,  Why do I go about mourning? If you are my safety, Why am I always in flight?   Now, unwind your welcome. Cast it out! Send your word out like prowling cats that Hunt the wide world home again.  Beacon me back to your high hill  And speak a name I nearly recognize. It wasn’t away from my wreck  That I found you, but in the middle of it. There you were, the one  I had longed for and laughed at.  I was hounded and  hackled, and racked But you were ready. I laid as much life as I had left On your altar and hoped the smoke Would pass for prayer.   O my soul, why would you come this far To fall now? Hold your hope aloft. None of this is what it seems.   Follow the Darkling Psalter at DarklingPsalter.substack.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    2 min

  8. APR 4

    Psalm 25—Is the friendship of the Lord nearness as I come apart?

    All autumn long and all alone, I trod a path through the woods While I prayed and fretted and watchedThe leaves go bright as pennies.Behind me walked ghost yearsI thought I’d shaken.Teach me the steps. I knowThere is a difference betweenSeeing the way and walking it,But my trust is loss-hearted and heavy.Put it through its unresting,Unhasting paces.  Lord, do not remember the sins of my youth.Forget the years I mistook my fears for virtues.Forget my empty renunciations.Remember me through your lasting love.Imagine me through your mercy. I stood a season-long watchIn the draughty chapel, listeningFor your voice between breaths of bellsong.I went wrong at long turns and saw it too late.Will you ravel me back and piece me together?Or is the friendship of the LordNearness as I come apart?Show me what there is to knowIn the way I need to know it.There is always more Of your kindness than I thought was left. I have longed for peaceBut never learned it.My days are harried, scraped bare,Blurred from bed to bed,And chased with a short, beaten sleep. Turn to me and be gracious.I found a trouble larger than I am.I can stretch my hands and touchBoth walls of my hope,So small a cell it is. Inside, I worry at the promises of the Almighty As a dog worries a bone.Show me the way of peaceAnd I will walk it. Hold my careworn, threadbare heart completely still.Guard me. Deliver me.Show me the snowdrops Crowded in the dooryardWhen winter comes.    For more from the Darkling Psalter, go to darklingpsalter.substack.com Music: "Nightfall Hymn" by Yehezkel Raz See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    2 min
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Listen to creative renditions of the Psalms.

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