A South Carolina Requiem

Tony Scully

• Editorial: Resource Publications
• Año: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781666795578
• Categoría: Literature
• Categoría: Religious Poetry

A South Carolina Requiem, the final book in Tony Scully's trilogy, evokes his earlier books, A Carolina Psalter and Come into the Light, with poems addressing foundation texts with questions and occasional confrontation as we move into new understandings of Spirit. As South Carolina strives forward in cultural achievements in science, education, and the arts, A South Carolina Requiem celebrates the warmth of its people and their continuing determination to fight for justice and civil rights.A South Carolina Requiem acknowledges the struggles over the centuries of dirt farmers and mill workers, the removal of the Cherokee in the Trail of Tears, and the injustices of slavery and Jim Crow as the threshold of rebirth and transformation. Scully's poems interact with South Carolina traditions and rituals: Baptist hymns; Presbyterian hymns; Anglican hymns; the Kaddish; the Cherokee prayer at death; significant sermons in the history of the Carolinas; and the Requiem Mass, itself a compendium of ancient and revered texts. The poems also interact with the sometimes controversial public events and personalities that have challenged and ultimately transformed the people of the state.

Psalm Eighteen

1 I love thee, O God, my strength.

2 God is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;

My God, my rock, in whom I will take refuge;

My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.

3 I will call upon God, who is worthy to be praised:

So shall I be saved from mine enemies.

4 The cords of death compassed me,

And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid.

5 The cords of Sheol were round about me;

The snares of death came upon me.

6 In my distress I called upon God,

And cried unto my God:

He heard my voice out of his temple,

And my cry before him came into his ears.

7 Then the earth shook and trembled;

The foundations also of the mountains quaked

And were shaken, because he was wroth.

8 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils,

And fire out of his mouth devoured:

Coals were kindled by it.

9 He bowed the heavens also, and came down;

And thick darkness was under his feet.

10 And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly;

Yea, he soared upon the wings of the wind.

11 He made darkness his hiding-place, his pavilion round about him,

Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.

12 At the brightness before him his thick clouds passe...