Psalm for Two Voices

                    (for Elizabeth McAlister)

By Philip Berrigan

     Dry stones we bruise we are bruised

         as we fall to the well bottom

Cast me not down forever

     Many jails many horrors the betrayal of many minds

         to instant cruelty

Could not undo

     The exactions of worse times the breaking of the bones of

         friendship

         connivance

             betrayal

     worse even could not undo

         could not do

     We stand like stones scarce warmed by the cup

             it is consummated

         who we are what we dare hope for

             Out of the depths

You have saved us from grotesquerie from self-mockery from

         the souring of good things

         from the enforced cruelties

         that rend the gentle

     Therefore I shall exalt Your name

You have traced our fate an X in the dust: Stand there

     until I return           Therefore exalt

You have snatched our world from us our friends the paths

             we walked in joy

                     out of the depths

                Yes, and affection apprehension

                our open and unspecked eye

                the exalted the sensuous the free 

                   out of the depths

You have taken ecstasy and left the dark

           joy and left a promise

           past and present

     and set our feet without recourse

           toward the unknown

     I will bless Your name

You have tried us and found us wanting tried us again and been

        silent

     whether in scorn or approbation we cannot tell

            Nevertheless I will bless You

You have plunged us from furnace to ice from evil to good report

     as if uncaring as if without heart as if by chance

               as if You were not

            as if You were not

               You Who are

           We will bless Your name.

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