Selah 7

Psalm 9:15f.
The nations have sunk in the pit that they made;
in the net that they hid their own foot has been caught.
(16) The LORD has made himself known; he has executed judgment;
the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion. Selah.

Looking back from the cave’s mouth
he can remember (his) Lot’s wife looking back
and him not looking back at her while
escaping for his life, then, even unto Zoar —

And now, he can’t remember how he came
to have two incestuously begotten sons
or why, after he skirted round the tar pits, he didn’t just go back
to live in his Uncle Abram’s tents once more.

—•—

Looking forward even from the grave’s mouth
he can scarcely remember Potiphar’s wife
and him not looking back at her while
escaping for his life, to the prison, to the throne —

And now he brings to remembrance
his two significantly born-in-Egypt sons
and why it was written even as he passed Shechem to go to Dothan
that one day all his bones would there return.

—•—

Looking out from the cliff-edge of Mount Nebo
he can remember Zipporah circumcising Gershom
as though he’d been there, as though they’d all been there
escaping with their lives, without a hoof left there —

And now he maps his remembrance out
of two significantly not-born-in-Egypt sons
and why his firstborn’s circumcision links back to a body in the sand
and on to that mountain over there — just there!