Selah 3

Psa 3:8

Salvation belongs to the LORD; your blessing be on your people! Selah.

Sunshine in the placid sky,
fresh-plucked olive leaf in mouth,
the rocks' jaws' gaping teeth are worn flat,
the sea's mouth robbed; landfall on Ararat.
East, West, spreading, North and South;
rainbow colours; 'Multiply!'

Sound of victory — a sigh,
shoot of life from sapling death.
The counsel of the wise to silence brought,
the bite of lion's whelp amounts to nought.
Wind of change is dying breath.
Life is hard and then you die.

Risen at the break of day
and still, 'The Way,' 'The Life,' 'The Truth.'
The unchewed cud is bursting from its gut
the ungnawed bone has not had time to rot.
Eagle's flight renews his youth,
counterpoint of 'Gone away.'

I suspect that I ought to give my friend Guy Davies the credit for the last line in the second verse since I think that that's the outline for a sermon he gave while a student 16 years ago. That's how I remember it anyway. The middle lines of the last verse are just about the most vivid I've ever written and I hope they are not thought to be inappropriate descriptions of the resurrection.