No need to worry; I’m not obsessed with angels. To me, the Celestine Prophecy sounds like a bad plot device for any number of fantasy novels – and the five people I meet in heaven will likely be wondering how I escaped hell.
That said, I do find angels to be a useful metaphor. Starting with this poem, and going for about four years after it (putting me a year or so out of college), I used poetry to explore what it means to be human. If ‘animal’ is our baser side, then ‘angel’ is what seperates us from the other creatures. What is it that makes us different from other mammals? Is our love purer? Or needs greater? Is it self-awareness and an opposable thumb? More then that, why do we struggle so hard between our base desires (such as procreation) and our need to be…civilized (however each culture defines it)?
This poem was the beginning of my thoughts on this – although it is just barely hinted at here. This was the start of my new writing. It made me write into places I had thought too dark to see into.
It? She. I wrote this for her. And this post is dedicated to her.
***
Fragile eyes, weeping urns
whose only tear
is found in the heart
glass angels kneel
and weep because you failed
to make them out of steel
I can see in them all the imperfections
and yet they are truly
Angels
and so few of us can make angels
Followed your link from my journal. Such good stuff here, good writing–thanks!
I have a few personal angel metaphors that help me work out the whys and wherefores: the dark angel, and wrestling with the angel.
DTG xxoo