Nocturne

I walked out into the Night,
into the Darkness
that had expected my visit for years,
waiting to remind me that
I was one of Her creatures;
that the deepest self we hold
is always shrouded in mystery,
as She is.

As I quit my home
the leaves of enormous trees
shook like the beating
of Seraphim wings,
on fire with Angel holiness,
praising the Lord of their belonging,
pressing me forward,
forward,
in a march to their erratic rhythms,
away from the habit of home.

The poems that prompted
my spirit to the outing
I pressed tightly in the notebook
cradled in the curves
of my possessive fingers.

I opened the book
and the looseleaf oracles
somersaulted in every direction
before me, joining the choir of leaves.

I gathered them all, save one,
which led me further into the Darkness,
walking, then running,
chasing this newborn
Angel of God
along its pirouetting path
through the empty, early morning streets,
flat against a gnarled trunk,
fighting,
flapping violently to gain its freedom,
then lighting like a winged swan
upon a puddle.
There it sucked the weight of water in
as an anchor, and held.

"You must go,"
the Angel told me
as the fluid seeped.
"Go, and be caught up
in the winds of Darkness,
letting go of your plans, and finding,
at the end of your perilous journey,
that place where your spirit holds
and will not let go.
Where your constant seeking
is not enough to stir you from
your belonging,
and you can finally
be filled with the
waters of life."