Night Watch

This is one of many angel poems I have written starting when I stopped at an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway at Air Bellows Gap in 1986.

NIGHT WATCH

In the shadows, he paces quietly

occasionally stopping near the gorge.

A deep hum of five or six notes

escapes into the air reverberating

in eerie cadence.

His thoughts, as deep as his voice,

(deeper than any human voice could claim)

swirl round like a trio of intersecting halos

over his dark wings.

The archangel ponders time past.

He is not impatient.

He knows the divine plan is exquisitely orchestrated,

a work of spectacular refinement and skill.

Loneliness is his companion now

in these dwindling days.

“Lucifer! My best elected friend of youth.

How I have missed you!

You, too, were given that

deepest and clearest of all voices.

Your gracefulness and wit,

your virtuous beauty

are gone to nothing.

No spirit creature can match you

in my affection.”

He longs for the day of restoration

when all will see his beloved king.

He prays. He composes a lament.

Miserere. Miserere.

Carefully he practices

so as not to cause avalanches

in his favorite mountain refuge.

In the distance he sees the lights

inferior by any standard to celestial lights.

He wonders if this would have all come to pass

had he been vigilant

on that eventful afternoon,

had he stalked the garden.

Obedient, he can only regret; he cannot interfere.

Obedient, he can only weep

and praise and hope

a little more greatly,

a little more sonorously,

a little lower than any man.