On Dragons
I've read somewhere our enmity with them –
With dragons – came just six short hours behind
Our first naive but bright and happy smile
Was met by two delighted goddesses –
Then young, though beautiful and awful still –
The smile of Terra and the Bright-Eyed Maid.
In but six hours they both turned old and dark
And warned of dragons lurking everywhere.
The first, a dress of thorns and thistles donned;
The second took to wandering disguised,
To urge the fight or yank the hero's hair.
Once, nearer to the time when shadows fell
Upon this once bright, solid world, we had
A better time remembering the things
They said, and what is real. But now we say
'There's no such thing as dragons' to ourselves
And curl up closely to the scaly things.
On Seraphim
Beholding them through heaven's opened door,
(As once Isaiah when Uzziah died)
St John said seraphim cease not to sing
Trisagion as with their beating wings
They orbit round the rainbow throne in rapt
Delight with all their many eyes agreed
And fixed upon the One in session there,
Whose footstool is the earth and yet exceeds
All space in his immensity, and light
In radiance, so that beneath four wings
Each seraph hides – with only twain they fly.
As each one cries out 'holy', each returns
With 'holy' louder still until they all
Exceed to conflagration; after which,
As if new born, they all begin again.
Their ardor so devours them that they
Must only vaguely know of us at all
And what they know cannot much interest them.
What condescension – oh what pain it was
(at least we must suppose) when light of light
Bid one of them to turn, to pause the hymn,
And cauterize a prophet's lips with coal.
And yet to which of them did God pronounce,
'Thou art my Son; I have begotten thee'?
Originally published in Spirit Fire Review, November 2024.
