Hymn to Life

*** Revised Common Lectionary *** Lectionary Reading: 2 Samuel 11:1-15 CLASSIC POEM: Bethsabe’s Song George Peele Hot sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air, Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair: Shine, sun; burn, fire; breathe, air, and ease me; Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me and please me: Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning, Make not my glad cause cause of mourning. Let not my beauty’s fire Inflame unstaid desire, Nor pierce any bright eye That wandereth lightly. *** This poem is in the public domain, and may be read in a live-streamed worship service. CONTEMPORARY POEM: Hymn to Life Timothy Donnelly Bathsheba, a fishing village built on Barbados’s eastern shore, magnet for hurricanes and pro surfers, its foamy white waters calling to mind the milk baths rumored to have kept Solomon’s mother so perilously beautiful. First the milk’s lactic acid would have acted as an exfoliant, gently removing layers of the dead, dry skin to uncover younger, fresher skin waiting like artwork in Dunkirk underneath, then the milk’s natural fat content would restore moisture lost to the exacting atmosphere of biblical Jerusalem, whose name in Hebrew, yireh shalem, means “will see peace.” Most versions of the story make her into an exhibitionist but the Midrash says Bathsheba, modest, was washing behind a wicker screen when Satan, seizing opportunity, appeared as a red bird to David who, cocksure with projectiles now, aimed the stone in his hands at the bird but hit the screen instead, splitting it in half and thereby revealing our bather, the wife of Uriah the Hittite at the time but not for much longer. [ READ THE FULL POEM ]