Diana Hendry
Guide Book Angels (Wells Cathedral)
I feel for them,
the Nine Orders of Angels
described in the guide book
as ‘badly weathered’.
Cherub, Seraph, Throne.
Not long ago they were dancing
in Dante’s Paradiso,
nine fiery circles ringing
a single radiant point.
Power, Virtue, Domination.
‘Barely recognisable’, it’s said,
the crowd the shepherds saw,
the one Mary met,
those sometimes UFOs to us.
Principality, Archangel, Angel.
I feel for them,
the Nine Orders of Angels,
time-worn, exhausted by travel
and hosannas; the weighing of souls,
the to-ing and fro-ing with prayers,
yet holding behind them, folded in shadow,
(like waiting love, or what matters most),
the fling of their lovely disorderly wings,
still ‘in good condition’, still lavishly crimson.
Page(s) 75
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The