One of mine, the concluding section of "God's Creatures", which I wrote in
the early seventies. I think it was called back to my mind by Andrew's
mention of angels in an earlier post. (Angels figure more largely in the
rest of the poem.)
Robin
4. Epilogue.
The broken man and the whole
Met on the road beneath the thankless sun.
"Saul, Saul, why perfectest thou me?"
And the hatchetman of the Sanhedrin:
"Lord, Lord, I will make straight
Each crooked path of your life, resolve
Each ambiguity, purge the texts
Of every imperfection you inherited
From your imperfect Father. Your defeat
Will become a glory, each nail will
Prove you more than mortal.
There will be a different story
About a different God, another
Man than you will die
On the cross. The paraclete descending
Will not be female, fruitful,
Flexible and wavering as the dove
But perfect and intransigent
Like an angel."
So the angels had dominion over the book
Of his life,
And lurked in every corner of the text like eyes
Peering through slit curtains;
And the book of Jesus the imperfect son of God
Became the book
Of Paul, who found his vision
In that blinding moment
When the dark wing-beat of the
Angel of Death unsprung his vision
And his dark became our light.
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