2 Poems from Ramadan Sonnets

RAMADAN ANGELS

Ramadan angels crisscross the sky
just above the earth on
watch for fasters who
lift up into other dimensions due to their
turning away from
created things to their Creator.

They are anonymous beings of light like
so many radiant molecules
doing their job in a well-oiled body
acting at ease. But their
body is the world, their

skin domains of transverse
communication, inside and out,
distant and near, and they are the

blue angels of Arthur Rimbaud, heraldic angels with
black wings of César Vallejo,
angelic aurora borealis sprites of
Shelley shinnying up the
purple shafts of night, and they are

supernatural warriors of India on plains of fiery clouds
riding fanatic horses steaming wide
billows of green, and they are

recorders of breaths,
measurers of dewdrops,
conductors of vitality to
grass blades and beard-hair, they

congregate in geometric fluidity as
vast as rock-crystals, as
tightly packed as

air swiveling around inside air
like those Chinese ivory balls carved
almost infinitely
one inside the other, or

one sphere outside the other, each

dimensional area totally
inhabited by The
Angelic!

No drop of water falls from
faucet or
sweating brow, no
corpuscle of blood
circulates that is not

propelled and taken through its
paces by intentional consciousnesses

sent on their errands by
God!

And in Ramadan demons are chained up,
the Gates of The Garden are flung wide, and

angels scour territories of The Alive for

perfection in a dry throat, perfection in a
tight stomach, perfection in a

heart made lighter by the strong
recollection of its Source!

13 Ramadan 1986

ANGELS, FURTIVE AND UNSEEN

Angels, furtive and unseen
pass quite easily through matter.
They move like a cascade’s glittering sheen
from peak-top crashing with a clatter

as rapidly and deft as water.
Made of light, they move as light
that has no substance to get fatter,
but only, against the dark, more bright.

Angelic bands move through the night.
There’s no cliff, gulf or canyon too
outrageous for their leaping flight
to cross, or swim, or scatter through.

They’re what makes everything alive.
Dead worlds vibrate when they arrive.

 

13 Ramadan 1986

Categories: Poems, Ramadan / 'Eid, Fasting