Before Anointment
By Yvanna Vien Tica
For King David
You are a boy
who will grow into a man. In all the stories
I read about you, I wait
for the whisper of your mother’s lullaby, whether
you remembered her song
as she swam into the afterlife,
or if she died before history
could name her.
I see
no mention of her song before the prophet
anointed you, before your father called you
least of your brothers, a shepherd
who sang
to the sheep, to the grass and rocks
knocking them from inside. Where did you learn
to string a harp and cover your tongue
with gentle alphabets
like the grief of a dove watching
his mate’s slaughtered carcass on an altar?
From aleph to taw, you cry out
for a mother’s mercy
from a God for whom you spilled
the lives of the sheep you guarded.
But look up.
Even if someday, when you are king,
you will drag Goliath’s sword
across the brick tower of his neck
with the same hands you used
to caress a lamb
in its final moments before sacrifice,
history promises that you will still yearn
for something softer than an arrow’s spine,
and your tongue will once again taste
the slow, swimming voice your mother gave you,
blessed you with,
in the twilight of her days.
Yvanna Vien Tica is a Filipina writer who grew up in Manila and in a suburb near Chicago. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in EX/POST Magazine, DIALOGIST, Hobart, and Shenandoah, among others. She edits for Polyphony Lit, reads for Muzzle Magazine, and tweets @yvannavien. In her spare time, she can be found enjoying nature and thanking God for another day.
Beautiful poem. Congratulations, Anak!
Beautiful. Praising God for your gift of Poetry. Keep it up.
Nice
This is a different, yet appropriate, perspective on David. The seeming silence on the sacred pages about David’s mother may, indeed, not have been silent at all as she may have been reflected in David’s life-giving Psalms. If David wrote Psalm 139, he must have thought deeply of his mom! Thank you, Yvanna, for this poem. You must have an excellent Proverbs 31 mother, too. God bless you.