Prophecy
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

Five thousand years–
a world of imagination–
a great shadow grazing time.

You are the holy ghost
who lived in the end
and the beginning,
your arms a night-lodging
where everyone is welcome,
where anyone can flee
the law of remembrance,
and sleep, like a child–
satisfied in knowing they
made all of this.

And when they wake,
you will wake, and another
way will open, and they
will become another name
for love and fly away to live
another five thousand years,
and you will fold your arms around
yourself, feel the warmth,
and, being satisfied, dream yourself
into sleep, into another
great light grazing the fields of time.

Seven Little Poems of Visions
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

The first, the last, within
the sea. Delighted ghosts
of eternal wildness walk
upon shores, upon waves,
like veils in the breeze.

***

It began—heavenly,
luminous, a confusion
of light upon waves,
and the people, awake
in the morning, changed
into sky.

***

A strange flower lived
many years. The ancient
spirit had nine sisters
gathered in one child.

***

The old woman with animals
in her head, refused to grow
dark until dawn. She went out–
a question arising, fluttering–
a dark cloak let go to anywhere.

***

An angel and a lion–
right and left—saw everything–
the brilliant future in life,
in death, in the unconquerable
love of riddles. The solution,
she thought, is to walk past them
both, it makes no difference
in the end.

***

I found myself plunged
in rays of light—every road
rose out of the deep–
my soul limped along,
and everywhere was morning
and the first day, and the hour
sweet and wild before me.

***

Spirits howling, turning
as one mass, spreading, and wrestling
for form, and the angel said,
getting closer: “Remember
you are beyond before. There are
enough animal bodies for us all.”

Sins Fade
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

Sins fade, one by one,
galloping over the shore.
Mary Magdalene once carried
the weight of the world–
her face set and grim–
a revolution, a brilliancy
in her voice, nearer to childhood
than any of the others–
her flaming sword held
against her breasts,
the glow of holy madness
in her eyes, ready to defend
the lost light even to the gates of hell.