Fallen Angel
what heaving wings fell through the black night
spinning down to earth, hot body crouched
in the moist ground
pressed over naked form - the beloved
crumpled wings and heart
a kiss of tenderness, longing and loss
the angel has descended, into gravity’s well
she is no more, but the density of blood, feather, bone
upon this earth…
Youth, beauty, were fleeting. You must love this ageing body, now
the slow withering, sallow skin, crumpled leaf
scuttled by the wind
there can be no relief
but the yearning, the submission
to gravity, to grief
ever portentous of
the great beauty
death.
Bound in eccentric orbit
ephemeral grace, returning
to dust, slow embrace
offering a love poem
gasping, still
clinging to this body
all we have loved
yet the tearing ascent
... exhale.
Fly close to the source, brilliant
plenipotentiary, mesmerised
forgetful, falling, willingly
falling back, ever deeper
into earth
into love.
I wandered off the street into the Victoria & Albert museum in London a while back, and found myself in the sculpture wing - drawn inextricably towards a bronze that had a numinous effect on my psyche. As I circled around it, running my hands over its form, I felt an overwhelming yet beatific sense of the embodiment of the mortal suffering of all humanity. This apparently was Rodin's fallen angel.
From that nascent experience I made the graphic for the accompanying love poem for ageing and death! Maybe it's a Scorpio thing, or just the darkness of winter, I don't know, but there ya go... ultimately of course, it is about the beauty of the cycle of which we are all a part!!!