IT IS NO LIGHT THING, TO SPEAK OF ANGELS

the angels are formidable in battle,

the archangels

weeping over the Flood

implacable in the face of things fated

standing snowlight in the doorways

forever announcing Christ to the Madonna

in all her sweet guises.

cut into the marble of the great cathedrals

defending the realms

they are whimsical on certain Christmas cards

in the pages of the child sized books

done up in pastels

solicitous in the breeze of one candle.

but in my dreams they flame

like burnished opal

forever on the brink of revelation

or poised on the bell towers in the films

of Wim Wenders, or surging with a pale green music

when the clouds parted at Duino, for Rilke.

I have seen them roar over caverns

lamenting the death of one child

silent with upraised hand, turning the cruel to stone

I have seen them in my lost home sifting the golden apples

from the rubble

in every kind of trouble

and out of the small things that I know looms this

one star sapphire half blinding certainty:

that whether donning all the sunset colors

or assuming the bruises of thunderheads

or bearing dire tidings of all the songbirds slaughtered;

their Music, risen again

or even a single blessed Word,

thirst to our blighted ears

it is no light thing to speak of them

much less, of God, who sent them.

mary angela douglas 16 november 2022