Page 6 - April 2022 Listen 16-2

AN ANGEL WAKES THE SLEEPING MAGI
( B a s e d o n a s c u l p t u r e B y G i s l e B e r t u s a t t h e
c a t h e d r a l o f s t . l a a r e a t a u t u n )

the perception of quiet —

but everywhere, everything is wakening:
the grace of bird flight
among plum-colored skies.

I do not know where I came from,

but I head with resolve
towards a humane belief, a light.

I don’t know where you came from,
but light is wrapped around you —
a Japanese kimono.

All I know is before you arrived,

I was asleep. I felt you
like a child feels a parent entering a room,
covering me

with a blue woolen blanket to my chin
I feel your glow, a wing-breath kiss,
a murmur, a message,
a tilt in the clouds and earth.

You point to a direction. My eyes follow
up invisible spires
to a menagerie of stars

where the spiral of galaxies
are God’s eyes.

Martin Willitts Jr, a Quaker poet, edits the
Comstock Review. His 25 chapbooks include the
Turtle Island Quarterly Award, “The Wire Fence
Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017),
plus 21 full-length collections includes “Unfolding
of Love” (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2020) and 2020
Blue Light Award “The Temporary World”.

6