It Is No Light Thing To Speak Of Angels Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

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