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Raise Up Your Angels, Lord
~ and us mortals too ~
Wounded air
blood of my heart
wept for a kiss and I
fell at your feet.
I fell at your feet, Lord.
Quintessentially heartless,
you the promised lover
of Rumi and Hafez,
know nothing of love
even less of desire.
Lord, see us.
Fallen angels,
undone by your whim
for looking askance,
shed a tear or two
in camaraderie
Raise them up, Lord
your celestial singers
robbed of rhapsodies
vanish even as we
humans inherit cindered worlds,
green and gold torn asunder.
Tears fall on open mouths
of abyss and forgotten seas
our hymns stay imprisoned
by a cruel mesh of
prayers turned to metals
Your worshippers need feeding, Lord
empty covenants seduce no longer.
Lord, feed us.
Why are we all sad?
We want to make the impossible
possible knowing in our viscera
it cannot be.
So we fall and fall again,
like your angels with scattered wings, Lord
and a dirge sighs our way…
It can only be angels harmonizing,
notes a tentative sepia
but a cordon nevertheless
that draws us together
angels and mortals.
The fall —
that much we have in common.
What hope can there be for us mortals
when heavens watch unmoved
as angels in holy agony
cast pleas to emptiness?
Lord, feel us.
We gather our futility of tears.
Angels pluck around for torn feathers.
That much we have in common.
United by a fall from Grace.
Farida Haque
