Angels in my Room

Suddenly there were two beings with me in my room.
I could not see them with my eyes,
But they were standing in my awareness,
To my left, suspended above the bed
Where I lay musing.

Surprising, because I had not sought them.
Frightening, because they were the living dead.
Radiant, because they were angels.
Inspiring, because they shone with wonderful life.
Uplifting, because of the gift they brought.

The living dead!
Yes. That I knew of them.
It was everywhere about them,
Communicating itself to me.
Telling me the majesty of death.

Speaking to me without words
They led knowing in me,
As you might lead a friend
Through your new house,
Revealing its secrets.

Thereby I knew,
All that I considered human,
In them had died.
Desire, longing to possess, power, sex, ambition,
All had melted away.

And I understood in their presence,
If I surrendered to the Highest,
This was my path.
My own person would melt away,
My desires fade like shadows in the sun.

Fear – Yes – in the loss of myself.
In the sense of my own futility.
In the knowledge of my littleness.
In the confrontation of majesty.
At the loss of what I thought my wisdom.

In them I saw beyond myself.
Through their emptiness
Of all that I so valued.
I saw shimmering light,
Cosmic in its vastness.

Their death allowed,
Shining through them,
Dimensions of a life
Beyond the very best
Of all my mind, or love, or art.

Radiant they were
With all the mystery of life itself.
Suns shone through them;
Not just with light,
But with ungrasped joy and love.

Inspiring me
By showing me the possibility
Of my life,
And all the lives
Of those myriads around me.

Uplifting too,
By unveiling to me
The meaning of the story He told,
Where, having lost ones cloak,
You offer your coat also.

Not, as I had thought,
An act of selfless generosity.
They said it was a statement.
“How strange. You want this old coat,
When you could have the life unbounded?”

That was their promise.
If I dared lose my self,
Let that coat be taken from me,
My being too would shine.
As theirs shone on me that day.

Copyright ©2003 Tony Crisp