“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” Psalm 8:3-4
The Psalmist, gazing beneath the vault of stars, marvels aloud:
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
The heavens dwarf him, the dust clings to him,
yet he dares believe the Maker bends low, remembers, and grants worth.
But even in that astonishment, the shadow of doubt stirs.
Another voice—the Philosopher’s—finds in the same expanse not remembrance but silence.
The stars speak only of distance,
the void carries no voice.
Armenia and Auschwitz, Hiroshima and Rwanda, Ukraine and Gaza—
the graves of countless innocents cry out:
how can one still say, Thou art mindful?
Likewise, science has stripped the heavens bare:
no angels in the spheres, only galaxies colliding in indifferent law.
Scripture, once oracle, is now artifact, sifted by history.
Thus the question sharpens: not What is man, that Thou art mindful?
but Is Thou mindful at all?
Between astonishment and silence stands the Poet, unable to forsake either.
He reveres the psalm, yet trembles with the Philosopher’s doubt.
Inheritance falters: the words remain precious,
but their certainty slips from them.
Still, he will not cast them aside.
Instead, he holds the fragments as one might hold a candle in the wind:
not enough to illumine the void,
yet enough to keep the darkness from being complete.
He labors to shape language into vigil,
to bind meaning against the scatter of grief,
to weave remembrance into flame so silence is not the final word.
Perhaps mindfulness is only man’s work—
to remember, to wrest coherence from the scatter of loss.
Or perhaps it is more: a presence that waits rather than speaks,
a silence that shelters rather than denies.
The Poet does not resolve the question;
he learns instead to live within it,
to practice reverence without assurance,
until the asking itself becomes our mindfulness.
Northcoast Antiquarian 