Inspired by an angel of the stunning Holy Trinity Church at Blythburgh, Suffolk.
Charles Worth
Imagine a shining youth in a painted
garden, awed and kneeling to announce a birth;
or sky at night with radiant light instead
of dark, and voices singing ‘peace on earth’;
or pale-faced virgins worshipping their lord
with flutes and trumpets in a heavenly band;
or a warrior judge with scales and sword
who separates the virtuous from the damned.
This one’s not going anywhere, up there,
fixed to the vaulted roof, with six-foot wings,
one mended, and whose calm medieval stare
beams heaven’s perspective down on earthly things –
transcending time and fortune, yet somehow
so present, vital, an eternal now.
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 524 • December 2022
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW
Copyright 2022, Oxford Quakers