When An Angel Descends

[Jim Wilson]

When An Angel Descends
A Sestina
By Jim Wilson

As I stand on the shore of the river,

Memories and recollections and dreams,
Snatches and patches of songs I once heard
Blend with the glow of the leaves that shimmer
In the wind-tossed fading light of sunset,
A moment I treasure and won't forget.

As I get older I tend to forget,
My mind resembles a flowing river,
The shifting colors observed at sunset,
The sound of a voice heard in last night's dream,
The way a desert in mid-day shimmers,
A single verse from a song I once heard.

On the tundra plain a caribou herd,
A scene from my past I will not forget,
Crosses a glacier-fed stream that shimmers,
Sunlight sparkling on the flowing river,
Transforming the tundra into a dream
As the sun slows down for a long sunset.

The musicians start to play a new set,
A striking new melody is now heard,
A melody that's from the realm of dreams,
A melody not easy to forget,
A melody, a song, from the river,
A melody that makes silence shimmer.

Gabriel descends, wings all a-shimmer,
Many hours after the sun has set,
His wings move like the flow of a river,
The sound of a celestial harp is heard,
A sound, a sight, I will never forget,
A vision I'll carry into my dreams.

What's the waking world? And what is a dream?
Between them's a barrier that shimmers;
Something unseen, something I can't quite get,
Something I can't grasp, something like sunset,
Something like a melody I once heard
While canoeing on a placid river.

On the river of dreams I once heard
Shimmering choirs during a long sunset --
A gift freely given that I won't forget.


Copyright 2014 by Jim Wilson
All rights reserved.