Angelic Physics

The coolest part is in the center of a flame
The driest part is in the center of the sea

The highest part when the depths are home
The most healed part when all is broken

The whitest part when blackness surrounds
The quietest part in the middle of sound

The fastest part in absolute stillness
The sweetest part when bitterness obtains

and can’t be shaken and horizons are
gun metal gray with one or two clouds

that move like camels with front legs hobbled
to slake their thirst at an oasis of openness

around whose perimeters angels are gathering
who’ll soon appear in the vision of the most

hopeless among us at the very lip of despair

before all solace is foregone
in the gathering twilight lit by their

fiery dancing in the center of which is a coolness
in the drowning depths of which is a dryness

at the nadir of which is altitudinous light
that makes us whole out of uttermost brokenness

ignited in a night whose dark is hammering
but in the blast of each blow is serenest silence

whose stillness is such that it accelerates

a sweetness that pours out its

honeyed mouth into the world

---

7/22/06 (from In the Realm of Neither)

Categories: Poems