Richard Wilbur in Omiscience

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

For Tom Wehtje

When poetry is poetry, it zings

Eternity as if the one true God

Remembered after He had made the wings

Of gold on Gabriel that they had awed

Jehovah’s Son and left him wordless.  Son

And Father and the Holy Spirit went

Supernal, silent when they thought as One

About a perfect poem they had sent

Through Wilbur long before a Fall

Had intervened in Heaven or in leaves

Of autumn.  Lucifer too bright through thrall

Had taught how Deity with beauty grieves.

  This one true God considered Virgin love

    And made it pregnant with winged flight above.

August 10, 2026; rewritten August 21, 2026