The Angels and Perfection
But the gate to perfection wouldn’t budge. We pressed
Until we could trace its designs on our shoulders.
When Michael collapsed, so did I; he knew best
The limits of our strength in the scope of our quest,
So we lounged on the wind-weathered boulders.
Silent on the wind-ruined boulders.
I could still smell the smoke, even way up here,
From where forests and villages all met with the same
Infernal future. Maybe pride, maybe fear,
Maybe timidity, it’s never too clear,
Pulled an innocent world to the flame;
Pulled the child of our hopes to the flame.
Then Michael’s voice came, a distant storm cloud,
Grumbling thunder lowly and hotly.
“It won’t open because we’re still feeble and proud!
We’re unworthy heroes,” he lamented aloud,
With all the love he could allot me;
Darkly, as if he forgot me.
I inspected my hands and tried hard to ignore
My bubbling pride; how perfect each line,
Each angle! Such warmth from their core
As could lift men to courage, soothe demons, but more -
I loved them because they were mine,
Loved their beauty because it was mine.
“But aren’t we perfect?” I asked. Michael replied
With a look that could make time itself pause
To consider its choices. He rose from his side
And scanned me minutely, trying to decide
Where I’d hid my damnable flaws,
Where I’d sabotaged us with my flaws.
“This feather’s askew,” he said, plucking at my wing,
And tossing a plume off the cliffside. It drifted
Gently, of course - there’s no lighter thing -
Down into the murk of the world’s suffering
From which it will never be lifted;
Never be loved or be lifted.
When we’d sought virtue, we’d both sheltered the weak,
Both sang to grief’s children, both scorned comfort’s lies.
We’d both tried to trace truth, or else didn’t speak,
Both met human nature at its depth, at its peak,
And we’d answered each other’s far cries;
Oh, I’ll always answer Michael’s cries.
But never had we turned our hard gaze away
From the improvement of ourselves to that of the other;
I was hurt by his judgement, and sought to allay
It with my own. I found a tangled stray
Feather, and pulled it from my brother -
Tossed it away from my brother.
So it began. We played a blind, zealous game;
He’d find one uneven, I’d find one off-white,
Each flaw calling another; neither pity nor shame
Stayed our depluming. I’d find fault in the same
Feathers that dazzled in flight,
Feathers I’d loved for their flight.
And then maybe we were less angelic. I read
The writing on the wall, in sans-seraphim,
Michael just trembled as I wept and bled.
Something once good had been taken, was dead,
And I couldn’t return it to him,
I could never replace it for him.
He tried hiding in wings that were barely there,
But I knew better than to splay mine and see
The price of our folly. I tried not to stare,
So I looked at the gate, still bolted and bare
And horrible in its certainty,
In its soulless and cold certainty.
“Is the only perfect thing here the gate?!”, I wailed,
Turning my eyes from the cast-iron judge
Of our value, against which our might only paled.
Goodness had brought us, idealism failed,
And still the black gate wouldn’t budge.
Still, our black fate wouldn’t budge.
“The world burns, poets whine, and rich men trade blows
With a dim looming future that can’t be dissuaded.
If there’s a secret to relieve us, nobody here knows.
Stand up! Push the gate! It’s the path that we chose,
To seek truth before all light had faded!”
I urged, though my own strength had faded.
Michael stood like a ghost. He stepped forth like sin;
Silent and subtle, but suddenly stark.
He shivered, and a cloud of smoke coiled in
Across the red sun like the devil’s own grin.
“Don’t you love me?” he asked through the dark,
A broken angel in the dark.
Beauty betrayed and heart broken, he neared
And leapt from the cliff, from our quest, from its lies,
Flapping his now useless wings as he veered
Into the pall, and then disappeared.
I ran to the edge and helplessly peered,
But there was only the smoke and the sound that I feared:
Terror from the voice I had loved and revered.
I always answer Michael’s cries.
I would jump to answer Michael’s cries.
The mirage of perfection was only a test
Of goodness on the altar of purity. I lost
It in the swells of my ego’s unrest.
Let faultlessness be a perfect fool’s quest,
I dive to pay its true cost -
And oh, what terrible cost!
Until we could trace its designs on our shoulders.
When Michael collapsed, so did I; he knew best
The limits of our strength in the scope of our quest,
So we lounged on the wind-weathered boulders.
Silent on the wind-ruined boulders.
I could still smell the smoke, even way up here,
From where forests and villages all met with the same
Infernal future. Maybe pride, maybe fear,
Maybe timidity, it’s never too clear,
Pulled an innocent world to the flame;
Pulled the child of our hopes to the flame.
Then Michael’s voice came, a distant storm cloud,
Grumbling thunder lowly and hotly.
“It won’t open because we’re still feeble and proud!
We’re unworthy heroes,” he lamented aloud,
With all the love he could allot me;
Darkly, as if he forgot me.
I inspected my hands and tried hard to ignore
My bubbling pride; how perfect each line,
Each angle! Such warmth from their core
As could lift men to courage, soothe demons, but more -
I loved them because they were mine,
Loved their beauty because it was mine.
“But aren’t we perfect?” I asked. Michael replied
With a look that could make time itself pause
To consider its choices. He rose from his side
And scanned me minutely, trying to decide
Where I’d hid my damnable flaws,
Where I’d sabotaged us with my flaws.
“This feather’s askew,” he said, plucking at my wing,
And tossing a plume off the cliffside. It drifted
Gently, of course - there’s no lighter thing -
Down into the murk of the world’s suffering
From which it will never be lifted;
Never be loved or be lifted.
When we’d sought virtue, we’d both sheltered the weak,
Both sang to grief’s children, both scorned comfort’s lies.
We’d both tried to trace truth, or else didn’t speak,
Both met human nature at its depth, at its peak,
And we’d answered each other’s far cries;
Oh, I’ll always answer Michael’s cries.
But never had we turned our hard gaze away
From the improvement of ourselves to that of the other;
I was hurt by his judgement, and sought to allay
It with my own. I found a tangled stray
Feather, and pulled it from my brother -
Tossed it away from my brother.
So it began. We played a blind, zealous game;
He’d find one uneven, I’d find one off-white,
Each flaw calling another; neither pity nor shame
Stayed our depluming. I’d find fault in the same
Feathers that dazzled in flight,
Feathers I’d loved for their flight.
And then maybe we were less angelic. I read
The writing on the wall, in sans-seraphim,
Michael just trembled as I wept and bled.
Something once good had been taken, was dead,
And I couldn’t return it to him,
I could never replace it for him.
He tried hiding in wings that were barely there,
But I knew better than to splay mine and see
The price of our folly. I tried not to stare,
So I looked at the gate, still bolted and bare
And horrible in its certainty,
In its soulless and cold certainty.
“Is the only perfect thing here the gate?!”, I wailed,
Turning my eyes from the cast-iron judge
Of our value, against which our might only paled.
Goodness had brought us, idealism failed,
And still the black gate wouldn’t budge.
Still, our black fate wouldn’t budge.
“The world burns, poets whine, and rich men trade blows
With a dim looming future that can’t be dissuaded.
If there’s a secret to relieve us, nobody here knows.
Stand up! Push the gate! It’s the path that we chose,
To seek truth before all light had faded!”
I urged, though my own strength had faded.
Michael stood like a ghost. He stepped forth like sin;
Silent and subtle, but suddenly stark.
He shivered, and a cloud of smoke coiled in
Across the red sun like the devil’s own grin.
“Don’t you love me?” he asked through the dark,
A broken angel in the dark.
Beauty betrayed and heart broken, he neared
And leapt from the cliff, from our quest, from its lies,
Flapping his now useless wings as he veered
Into the pall, and then disappeared.
I ran to the edge and helplessly peered,
But there was only the smoke and the sound that I feared:
Terror from the voice I had loved and revered.
I always answer Michael’s cries.
I would jump to answer Michael’s cries.
The mirage of perfection was only a test
Of goodness on the altar of purity. I lost
It in the swells of my ego’s unrest.
Let faultlessness be a perfect fool’s quest,
I dive to pay its true cost -
And oh, what terrible cost!