Borodino_church
It was the flash of black among the yellow billion.
It was the green chink on the chapel’s sphere.
It was some rust or recalcitrance in us
by which we were by the grace of pain more here.
It was you, me, fall and fallen light.
It was that kind of imperfection
through which infinity wounds the finite.
It was the flash of black among the yellow billion.

This article appears in January 23 2017.

Christian Wiman’s latest collection of poems is Survival is a Style (Farrar, Straus and Giroux.) He teaches at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music.