Psalm 19:2 — Summary

Dave BontaContemplative

Night showed morning as in a theater the still of the void, which she had let drop into me.

Show the whole poemHide the poem

Learn Poems app

Try the Learn Poems app

Everything from the website trainer, and more: new exercises, voice recording and sharing, reminders, quick review.

The title points to Psalm 19, which says that day after day the heavens speak and night after night they reveal knowledge. Bonta's short poem takes that idea of the sky speaking and turns it strange. Here, night doesn't offer knowledge. It presents morning the way a stage presents a scene, and what the scene shows is "the still of the void."

The final lines carry the shock. Night, called "she," has let this stillness "drop / into me." The speaker doesn't just look at the emptiness. It lands inside them, like something dropped into a well. The word "drop" suggests a quiet, weighty fall, and the poem ends right after it, leaving the speaker holding the feeling.

The mood is hushed, awed, and a little unsettling. The speaker seems less frightened than stilled, as if dawn has revealed a vast calm that is both beautiful and hollow. The theater image adds distance, as though the world is performing something the speaker can't quite step out of.

Read also

More by Dave Bonta

All poems
ContemplativeDave Bonta

Plea bargain

I hear half a beat of drum to serve time have half a hope in the meantime praise God
DreamyDave Bonta

Cibola 3

I awake in the dark and shake free of sheets & blankets, of down-filled quilt. The rituals of waking– the long, hot shower, the coffee–give
ContemplativeDave Bonta

In good light

On a maple’s pale bark, a zigzag ladder—old tooth-marks from a wandering snail? Green islands of moss