In another religion class I am currently taking titled ‘Sin Seminar’ by Dr. Hege, we are reading the works of Christian Wiman. Wiman is a novelist and famous poet, with some of the most beautiful prose I have ever read. We are currently reading his book, My Bright Abyss, which is a poetic narrative of Wiman navigating life transitioning from atheism to theism all while battling an incurable cancer. It is a heart-wrenching, thought-provoking, say-yet-happy book, and it led me to search for more of his original poetry. Some of his poems is a prime example of how big themes of Christianity and the Bible can intersect with the written art of poetry. Here is one of his poems:
After the Diagnosis
No remembering now
when the apple sapling was blown
almost out of the ground.
No telling how,
with all the other trees around,
it alone was struck.
It must have been luck,
he thought for years, so close
to the house it grew.
It must have been night.
Change is a thing one sleeps through
when young, and he was young.
If there was a weakness in the earth,
a give he went down on his knees
to find and feel the limits of,
there is no longer.
If there was one random blow from above
the way he’s come to know
from years in this place,
the roots were stronger.
Whatever the case,
he has watched this tree survive
wind ripping at his roof for nights
on end, heats and blights
that left little else alive.
No remembering now…
A day’s changes mean all to him
and all days come down
to one clear pane
through which he sees
among all the other trees
this leaning, clenched, unyielding one
that seems cast
in the form of a blast
that would have killed it,
as if something at the heart of things,
and with the heart of things,
had willed it.
I was wondering if any classmates had any interpretation on this. The poem’s title obviously gives away the context from which he wrote it in, post-cancer diagnosis. The beautiful, and at the same time sad, thing about this poem is that you don’t have to have cancer to relate to this poem. We have all, at some point, felt like that tree. Questioning how we have survived on this earth for so long when so much suffering happens every day. And then one day, you are the one who is struck by random misfortune. I would recommend his writings to anyone interested.
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below..
Leave a Comment