Angel Speak, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

Angel Speak

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

Every night, a friend

Comes to talk with me,

Carrying word of faraway

And intimately near places.

Sometimes she talks,

Animatedly, with an urgency

Known only to those with important news,

Sometimes she talks

In gently bobbing waves of psychedelia,

Which carry me on their drifting

Clouds to the shores of morning.

Sometimes she chases me

Without a word—just pursuing me

As if I were quarry, sometimes

She drops me, plunging me

Into the day, sweating and panicked.

Even when she appears sinister,

I have come to know she simply wants

To send messages from the soul.

 

And every morning, I wake

And forget everything

She said.  Well, some of it

Lingers for a few moments, like

The scent of honeysuckle in spring;

But eventually, as I dress,

And rustle papers and books,

It fades, or lifts, or blows,

Or flies, or runs

Away.

 

I think sometimes

What if she ached to be known,

To be heard, to be validated, seen?

 

What if she simply wanted

To be there, like

An angel by the riverside.

 

Indeed, what if

All dreams were flocks of angels

Forming grand gestures and landscapes

Of secrets intent on revelation?

 

What if she was trying

To tell me she needed help

Or that the spiritual world

Was in trouble?

 

What if she was trying to tell me

That it’s time, as I sleep

Through my day,

To wake up and start singing?

 

 


 

 

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Reading the Runes

Reading the Runes
By
Joseph Anthony Petro

 

 

Scatter bits of twigs to the ground,
Look up through moon-lit branches,
Get eye-level with blades of grass,
Study the kindling before it feeds the fire,
Observe the antlers of the silent deer,
Notice the positions of sleeping loved-ones,
Stop and consider wooden fences along the roadside—
Have any of the beams fallen creating a nied or kenaz?
Trace the markings of river rocks,
Contemplate graffiti and the drawings of children,
What do you cast when you hastily arrange the silverware?
Pause and pluck a moment of time,
Give thanks to Odin swung nine nights from the windswept ash,
Then read the way lines line up and down around you anywhere—
Everywhere below and above—books on shelves,
Pencils on desks, the hair in front of your eyes–
Look at the lines in your own hand—see the myriad crisscrossing runes.
We are surrounded—yes, we are
Part of the fabric—yes, we are
Living letters in skin and bone,
Stories written in flesh and blood.
What is it our every day frenzies prophecy?
What is it we say when we dance?
What divinations do our movements betray?
What messages are we writing on the pages of the world?
What spells are we casting just by walking?
How will they position our arms when we die?
Odin—send your ravens and believe we are trying
To gather the wisdom you bestowed on our lot,
See our way through the falling forest,
And welcome us home once this chapter is done.