29.8.10

Angels

*To S
Who is one,
perhaps the only one, I know*



Solitary souls.
Oceans of tears in their breasts
hidden. Set out
As the sun sets
To drink those of others-
Wailing children, weeping mothers,
Ailing old men and dying lovers-
Hand in hand
As they fall
No shape of beauty moves away the pall*
And darkness engulfs.


Tired, they return
Cry rivulets
But the oceans flow still
And again, as the sun sets
The work begins-
Drink more
And more
And yet more of Their Sins.



* From Keats' Endymion

3 comments:

AP said...

And why do you have to drink of others' sins?

Aupsy-The cOOlest One!! said...

is this poem wrongly titled? i found it more devilish and dark. Ok maybe i didnt get the metaphors too well i guess.
But beautifully thought out..this one's just like a slo-mo scene from a movie's climax!:)

AP said...

In drinking of others' sins, do not the angels sin themselves? Or, do they not make themselves the receptacles of sin? If so, do they not carry sin within themselves, and by that virtue unclean, polluted?

Of course, this idea, of angels as carries of sorrow, of the burden of man, is, as you will acknowledge, simultaneously a part of Western Christian consciousness even as it is not. You will on one hand remember the pilgrim and his travails, the burden of guilt and sin heavy upon his backs and Lord God and the Angels waiting at yonder end of the thorny road. On the other hand, you will remember the nineteenth century and the marketing of religion, the institutionalisation of angels as benevolent, meek figures. You continue, obviously, in this latter vein, but not without serious implications for the former- for that, indeed, as well as for our own background as we know it.