Among Angels Read Free Page A

morning,
    Below God’s laughter;
    Feathers like fingers
    Clutching the air,
    Dragging and dragging
    Fell night after.
    â€” JANE YOLEN

Easter Sermon
    Do not mention angels , I am warned.
    Unitarians do not believe .
    My talk, therefore, is of a feral child,
    mute in its wild agonies,
    given no tongue by God
    but the raven’s,
    the nightjar’s,
    the spotted snake’s,
    the wolf’s.
    Overhead a fan, like angel wings,
    beats out a different tale.
    The children gaze upward;
    the adults stare down at their feet.
    Afterward, each confession whispers into my ear:
    â€œI believe in angels.”
    â€œI believe.”
    Someone flies heavenward from church,
    laughter floating down like feathers,
    like sermons from the sky,
    I believe.
    â€” JANE YOLEN

Harahel Writes on the Head of a Pin
    Hunched by the candle,
    wings humped behind,
    the angel of archives
    scribbles his prayers.
    Shema Yisroel
    one hundred thousand times;
    the tiny consonants
    lumining his face,
    his chin so bearded
    with the light,
    passing cherubim
    mistake him for
    God.
    It is always thus
    with writers.
    â€” JANE YOLEN

Gabriel Returns from the Annunciation
    Notice the wings of the angel
    streaming from his body as he crosses
    the open palms of the water.
    When the ocean shows him
    her many little knives,
    his wings tremble and fray,
    and the salt diamonds them.
    They open like valves of light.
    â€” NANCY WILLARD

Angelic Script
    In the year 1327,
    no longer happy with buttressed Gothic,
    angels developed their own script.
    Teiazel, tired of men of letters,
    created two fonts:
    Celeste and Malachim:
    from aleph to taw
    the serifs soared like comet heads
    on the stands of each stroke.
    You do not believe me?
    It is so written
    in the Dictionary of Angels ,
    and such volumes do not repeat lies.
    â€” JANE YOLEN

The Founding of Saint Andrews
    Brother Regulus awoke,
    the light in his cell like dawn.
    An angel squatted in it,
    robe hitched up to his heavenly knees.
    â€œRegulus,” the angel said
    in a voice so like fire,
    one of his glorious eyebrows
    was slightly singed with smoke.
    â€œBring the tooth. Kneecap, too.
    Don’t forget the upper armbone,
    three fingers from the right hand.”
    Even for saintly relics,
    it was a peculiar shopping list.
    Pro forma , Regulus protested.
    Then he got the bones.
    They won for the Church this headland,
    so like lost Eden,
    where once boars rutted through gorse;
    and lapwings, in huge straggling flocks,
    darkened the winter air.
    Now golfers play in packs across the green,
    under clouds like riffling wings,
    crying “Allelujah” with every putt.
    God’s angels know what they are about.
    â€” JANE YOLEN

The Lesson on Guardian Angels at Star of the Sea Elementary
    Sister Humiliana, sparrow
    shaken from His dark sleeve
    to watch over children
    like rows of new corn
    till God shall call you,
    to keep His letters in line
    aleph, beth, gimel ,
    and camels, elephants,
    and children,
    each holding the apron strings
    of the one in front of it—
    Sister Liberata, hummingbird
    that forgot how to walk,
    in the photograph on the playground
    you flap starched wings.
    Your white habit is the laundry
    of angels. Behind you,
    Lake St. Clair unwinds
    her wicked spools.
    A storm is rising.
    By this time you have both
    crossed the equator into heaven,
    leaving flocks of children
    like shells at high tide
    waiting for the whitecaps
    to collect them.
    â€” NANCY WILLARD

The Twenty-eight Angels Ruling in the Twenty-eight Mansions of the Moon
    In each house there is cheese on a table,
    a mute pewter candlestick,
    a bone-handled knife,
    a wine goblet made from fired clay.
    The wine is sweet,
    the challah sweeter,
    pulled like cloud taffy into braids.
    There are no chairs;
    who would sit, wings folded behind?
    Cushions dot the floor,
    needlework designs like stained glass
    depicting each step
    in the creation of the world.
    Come, eat, you are too thin.
    God likes his angels like