Christian Wiman
Every Riven Thing
God goes, belonging to every riven thing He’s made
Sing his being simply by being
The thing it is:
Stone and tree and sky,
Man who sees and sings and wonders why
God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing He’s made,
Means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
Trying to will himself into the stillness where
God goes belonging. To every riven thing He’s made
There is given one shade
Shaped exactly to the thing itself:
Under the tree a darker tree;
Under the man the only man to see
God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s made
The things that bring Him near,
Made the mind that makes Him go.
A part of what man knows,
Apart from what man knows,
God goes belonging to every riven thing He’s made.
This Mind of Dying
God let me give You now this mind of dying
Fevering me back
Into consciousness of all I lack
And of that consciousness becoming proud:
There are keener griefs than God.
They come quietly, and in plain daylight,
Leaving us with nothing, and the means to feel it.
My God my grief forgive my grief tamed in language
To a fear that I can bear.
Make of my anguish
More than I can make. Lord, hear my prayer.
-Christian Wiman, from the Harvard Divinity Bulletin
