James Walton #30 Uriel Touches Down After Burning Eden

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.