Yet Do I Marvel

Countee Cullen (1903-1946)


I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quible could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
 

From Color by Countee Cullen. Copyright © 1925 Harper & Bros., renewed 1963 by Ida. M Cullen.

See also Countee Cullen.