Providence

For pleasure, Fortune, a designer, weaves.
We are her stuff—yarn, thread, and loom, ideal.
Her tapestry seems flawless; she conceives
it cunningly, attended by her wheel,

whose mechanism works, apparently.
But might there be a wheel of Providence
that goes around, beyond contingency?
It waits for its good time. Tides and events,

when full, can offer favor and devise,
by turning folly inside out, new fate—
a gracious dialectical surprise.
Let crafty Fortune scheme and calculate:

an unseen angel, hovering, may reveal
on you, when time is ripe, redemption’s seal.

—Catharine Savage Brosman