How Divine
{An Umbrella Special Feature}


Marilyn Taylor’s

sixth collection, titled Going Wrong, is due out from Parallel Press in early 2009. Her work has appeared in Poetry, American Scholar, Measure, Atlanta Review, and many other journals and anthologies.

She is a Contributing Editor for The Writer Magazine, where her articles on craft appear bi-monthly.


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The Agnostic’s Villanelle

She cannot fathom what God had in mind
or what eternal Truth was brought to bear
when Beethoven went deaf, and Milton blind.

Although she knows God will be disinclined
to answer her subversive little prayer,
she cannot fathom what He had in mind.

How many masterworks were left behind—
unwritten verses, music lost in air—
when Beethoven went deaf, and Milton blind?

Was God afraid of being undermined
by feats as near to the sublime as theirs?
If not, she can’t tell what He had in mind

Unless He was incensed with humankind,
flinging back to Earth his own despair
when Beethoven went deaf, and Milton blind.

How will she bear it, should she find
no other answer but that God could err?
Can no one tell her what He had in mind
when Beethoven went deaf, and Milton blind?



 
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