! ! He Flew With Angels Poem by Michael Shepherd

At school, the look-up homework
one day was ‘mercy’…

and that proved itself
to be indeed itself

what the dictionary said
haunted; seemed inadequate;
haunted again

he smelled his life, as one
smells Spring in the air
of a freezing January day

every one of his thoughts
began and finished
with the word unsounded

then his actions too grew
out of it, returned to it

his friends, his wife, his family:
some heard it, some did not

years passed; in the darkness
of the quiet evening street,
the great and famous called on him

what he had to say was
too great for the public,
too young yet for the public

but the word, nourished,
slipped into the courtroom,
whispered in the palaces,

stood behind the priests
who did not say it yet
heard it murmuring in their ear

while for him, the word grew and grew,
flew with him higher ever higher

so they talked of how to martyr him
because the word was too big for them

he died before they decided on his fate
and was that too what it meant

leaving the word in the air like
a limitless embrace, like
the warm wish of a departing guest
said over the shoulder with a smile,
a wave, a memory

and a sowing and a growing,
a reaping, a vastness, a light,
a boundless love