There is no new thing in God’s sight. (The day, the moon, are new to us.) Play a new song to the Lord, Glass full enough to pass along Without a spill. Such ink made sky black, Kissed stars through pinholes, caught Their night tears in a jar, each drop an ocean.
“Let be there was”—the deep mind stamped A pattern on the nothing of before What was to be stood forth: When time, one chord, struck there To now. Whatever One possesses Is a gift from elsewhere. Inspiration comes unbidden. One guessed At what’s inside our nature. Truth stays hidden, feeds upon The question. Some try to steal A march on death, drown fear in senses. Some chosen can believe the soul is real.
—Laurance Wieder is the author of Words to God’s Music: A New Book of Psalms (Eerdmans), the only book in the Library of Congress featuring a quartet of back-cover endorsers consisting of Paul Auster, the late Tom Disch, Luci Shaw, and R. L. Stine.
Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.
