Uriel Touches Down After Burning Eden
Sulphur ignited in the colour of wings
we fell from your bidding
to our own choice in flight,
no longer by an almighty privilege constrained
all the way to earth tumbling in loss
alight for your honour an augury of archangels,
to score their treachery in smouldering letters
indelible in the broadcast of feathers
the outcast’s brand calling out their names,
our language beyond prayer to curses unknown
tears erupted as slingshots
vengeance was beneath you we thought,
your benevolence in a trickster’s shroud
uneasily wrapped around us
in the dormitory we awakened,
questions released embraces
dropped the ember seeds for regret
ash for bedding now in savoured bellows,
cherished in youngest souls only a child
hears the departing flap turns willingly
to witness all we were once promised.
From Walking Through Fences ASM & Cerberus Flying Island Books, Macau 2018
James Walton Poetry 