The spheres all align, but
I wallow in trepidation,
Worrying about details of
Which You have promised even the
Birds have no fear. Yet I juggle the spheres
And think my way is greater,
Thus upsetting the order even though
I know I should trust You far
More. My struggle for control is
Ongoing, even though you have declared me innocent.
“But trepidation of the spheres/Though greater far, is innocent.”
~John Donne, “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”
(So! What is a “syzygy”? Basically it’s “the nearly straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies (such as the sun, moon, and earth during a solar or lunar eclipse) in a gravitational system.” (According to Merriam-Webster)
When I heard the prompt, I first thought of the phrase “the music of the spheres,” and that made me think of a line from John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” so I decided to use that line and create another Golden Shovel poem. Somehow it ended up as a poem alluding to Matthew 6:25-27 and Romans 7:14-20. How’s that for an alignment?)