Golden Shovel with Another Translation Problem (Song of Songs 1:12)

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A very old, thick book with frayed binding — Photo by Danika Perkinson on Unsplash

Maybe I’m doing this wrong. While
the world skips from tongue to tongue, I’m stuck on the 
book that holds the oldest language I know, as if a king
kept me close: While everyone else abandoned monarchy, I sat
down and stayed put. Even when I was mad at
God, I couldn’t give up the idiom of His
people, who are my people. Should I hate the table
for the meal served upon it? I spend my
mornings wrestling God’s vernacular, words like spikenard
and comely and goodly. I admit they all gave
me conniptions, threatened to throw me off
my game, though it’s not really a game. I caught its
pattern and never let go, as jasmine will never let go of its fragrance.

Becka Mara McKay

is a poet and translator. She directs the creative writing MFA at Florida Atlantic University, where she is faculty adviser to Swamp Ape Review. Recent work has appeared in Witness, Shō Poetry Journal, Epiphany, and december. Her newest book is The Little Book of No Consolation (Barrow Street Press, 2021).

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