For D.

Groans going all the way up a young tree
half–cracked and caught in the crook of another

pause. All around the hill-ringed, heavened pond
leaves shush themselves like an audience.

A cellular stillness, as of some huge attention
bearing down. May I hold your hand?

A clutch of mayflies banqueting on oblivion
writhes above the water like visible light.

“For D.” from the book Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman. Copyright © 2010 by Christian Wiman. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

Listen to Christian Wiman’s On Being interview, “How Does One Remember God?

Reflections