The Earth and Trees There, and the Firmament Angels Also 

The angel and the sky. Well, the angel couldn’t be seen, as it might be in poems and cinema, in ancient and even modern tales. No, but the angel they, the diviners, said was nevertheless there. Ok, I thought, and this is where faith was important. And the clouds remained and some souls out there went past in the distance. You might run into a kind one for there were many good-natured persons, some others a bit grey and a few were very questionable to say the least. But let’s get back to the angel. Angel had become a commonplace and taken for granted word, like Aldous Huxley had said of the word ‘love,’ but that’s okay. I made up a poem in my mind…

Angel angel, 

guiding and wise,

inform and protect the journey,

and guard me from lies

Angel angel,

It’s better above,

Much must be purer there,

Especially love

A wind suddenly sweeps the snow off hills and creates a ghost like air. Power. Prowess. Plenitude. I watch it. What’s more, it sounds alarming but amazing. I feel joyful. Unexpectedly joyful at that. Hopefully, it’s a sign of maturity or good perspective to be impressed by such a seemingly small phenomenon like the wind or snowflakes, barren branches cold and lonesome, or an old acorn or wandering leaf. These are the poet’s and nature photographer’s friends, plus signs for a mystic to read. For the larger world would surely find it all unremarkable. But to condemn the prosaic is to miss the sacred. To dismiss the everyday is to miss the eternal. 

I paused by the invisible angels of evergreens and thought of Rainer Maria Rilke. He had said an angel to a modern would appear terrifying. Maybe that’s why they couldn’t be seen. Breathe. Yes, take a break and even a photograph of the red berries down the way that remained on a tree even in the cold and strange, the overcast and challenging, winter months. 

Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian poet, writer, and photographer. His most recent work, a third compilation of prose poems and landscapes photographs, is titled The Book of Love and Mourning.