Islamic Interpretation
The Psalms of David that appear in the chamber of sleep are the original breath that still circles the earth like an invisible belt, each syllable a drop of resin bleeding from the wounded heart of the cedar of Lebanon, so that whoever hears them is coated with the fragrant sorrow of every prophet who ever wept over a city that would not answer; they are the sound of the soul remembering it was once a single flute before it was broken into two reed pipes, and the lament is only the longing for that lost wholeness. To recite them is to become the echo-location of divine mercy, sending grief outward and letting it return as guidance, the way a bat navigates darkness by the shape of its own cry; every verse is a tear that refused to fall to the ground and instead rose, crystallized, and became a lens through which the face of the Friend can be glimpsed in the midst of any calamity. The Psalms are the ledger in which the universe records every sigh pressed out by oppression, every gasp of wonder at dawn, every moan of the lover separated from the Beloved, and whoever utters them in dream is auditing the account of human pain so that no sorrow is ever lost or declared bankrupt. They are the hidden music behind the apparent world, the percussion of hearts knocking against the door of mercy, the flute of breath slipping through the cracks of the ribs; to hear them is to discover that all worldly sound is merely a poor translation of this original score written on the membrane between the seen and the unseen. When they surface in sleep they carry the scent of the shepherd’s field where David once stood, a smell of wet wool and struck earth that convinces the dreamer he is still a keeper of some small flock of hopes that must be guarded from the wolf of despair. The Psalms are the rope let down from the sky of nearness, woven of repentance and praise in equal strands, and whoever climbs it finds that every rung is a name he once mispronounced and now learns to say correctly through the mouth of tears. They are the reunion of opposites: fear folded into serenity like two wings of the same bird, unity emerging from the clash of discordant selves the way a single drumhead is tightened by the pulling of opposite ropes. To earn one’s bread by their recitation is to be fed by the original baker who first mixed the dough of language with the yeast of longing, so that every word rises and becomes a loaf that can be broken and shared among the hungry caravan of the living and the dead. Thus the Psalms in dream are not poems but pulses, not verses but vessels; whoever carries them wakes carrying a wineskin filled with the same liquid lament that once intoxicated the king-prophet on the roof of his palace, and from that day forward every step he takes leaves a faint print of music that the wind repeats to anyone still listening for the sound of the first yes spoken between the soul and its Maker.