In “Yet Do I Marvel,” Countee Cullen expresses an ambivalence that many of us are familiar with. It is not too difficult to sympathize with the poet’s opening lines: “I doubt that God is good, well-meaning, kind,/And Did he stoop to quibble could tell why/The little buried mole continues blind.” Here, it is made plain to us that his beliefs dictate that God is ultimately good and righteous, yet, nonetheless, life has apparently given him reasons to question his. As the title indicates, Cullen is marveling at life and human beings as God’s creations and the relationship we have with Him. Although he says he is free of doubt, skepticism appears to be present in this remark. Here perhaps the rather rhetorical question of why life is the way it is is being posed. It seems, at least up until this point, that Cullen is supposing that a truly good God would not subject His creatures to such paradoxical, even cruel, situations. Upon closer analysis of the mole and its scenario (“The little buried mole continues blind”), which may function as a metaphor for the poet himself, the possibility is not ruled out that the poet is hinting to us what seems to be an inescapably bad situation may in fact be a fixable one. A mole, like all creatures, has adapted in ways that allows it to survive, and it may be that Cullen is suggesting to us that thing are not as random and as terrible as they may seem and that there is a way out of challenging situations. The following line, though, counters this acknowledgement, corresponding more to the original direction the poem was headed in: “Why flesh that mirrors him must some day die.” Here he recognizes the absurdity in a God that would create beings in his likeness only to watch them expire. Cullen goes on to give more examples: “Make plain the reason tortured Tantaslus/Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare/If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus/To struggle up a nerve-ending stair.” He has come to the point of speculating about the apparent pointlessness of such strife and toil that is wrought upon those who already suffer. Again, he expresses his bewilderment: “Inscrutable His ways are…” Certainly, the ways of the universe are mysterious to us all and Cullen is no more enlightened than the most enlightened man, but the power does take note of a double standard that exists between God and all of us: “…and immune/To catechism by a mind too strewn/with petty cares…” With these lines he extends this logic, saying that we will continue in futility to question God’s actions, to no avail. And here, the usage of the word “catechism” is rather noteworthy: “To catechism by a mind too strewn.” It has a double meaning, being both a series of questions put to an individual and a book summarizing Christian religion, written in the form of questions and answers. Essentially, no matter how we question Him, God is going to do His thing. When Cullen says “petty cares,” there is a definite ironic tone there, again articulating how whatever we concern ourselves with pales in comparison to how God has planned out the fate of the universe. Cullen showcases another irony when he reveals that these “petty cares: we both with are in regards to understanding “what awful brain compels His awful hand.” Choosing to use the world “awful” is a pretty blatant example of hostility, although is it far from difficult to understand where he is coming from here. More subtle implications may be indicative of a play on words, though, conveying a feeling of intimidation on the part of man in the face of an awe-inspiring god. Nonetheless, it is almost absurd that we can carry on sanely having to accept the fact that our most fervent of worrying and deepest of pondering won’t bring us to life’s solutions. Our paranoia and inadequacy about whatever powers that be only continues to fuel our assumption that some untouchable, superior being does possess these answers. All of that being said, when we reach the closing of the poem, Countee Cullen is basically reduced to a “still, I gotta ask…” kind of mentality: “Yet do I marvel at this curious thing…” he says. The last line, “To make a poet black, and bid him sing!” brings the poem together in the perspective of the paradoxical theme that has been underlying throughout. Cullen brings back the ultimate irony to his own personal situation, withdrawing from the broader view of the general human struggle. We see singing as something beautiful, celebratory, and when blacks are given this divine gift in the context of their being regarded by our society as not worthy of it in the first place, is this not like a cruel joke? If a black were to sing and then be made a mockery of, derided and belittled, he would soon realize that to engage in such an otherwise glorious form of human expression would be self defeating. If singing is a gesture to be acted out with gaiety, then here there is certainly nothing for the black man to celebrate.