As one falls from a ride

after Eileen Tabios’ ‘The Secret Life of an Angel’
after Jose Garcia Villa’s ‘Girl Singing’

There was a man

once, who saw immortality
in his shortening shadow
as he moved away

from the light of day,
who sensed an immanent will
in the flow of clouds,

the swimming sky, from
sapphire to cerulean to cobalt,
its numerousness, its many-

and-variousness amazed him.
In awe of it all he fell,
as one falls from a ride.

Definitively he folded his
arms, like a hand at poker
that’s going nowhere, a wish

in his voice, a sound of singing
inside that might proclaim
the truth of a secret,

something hidden and high,
an angel that watched,
perhaps, an angel that risked

what it had on him, that never hedged
or havered and sung such notes.
He heard them muster

on air as a man might hear
a voice in a valley
carried until it unfurled

before him. ‘Your
senses,’ he said, ‘may betray
the marvelling mind.’

And he looked away.

      (By and © C. J. Allen)

[Note: Clive writes: “‘As one falls from a ride’ uses the end-words from Eileen Tabios’ poem ‘The Secret Life of an Angel’”]

Comments

[Ernesto Priego]

Awesome. Or, should I say, wicked...

[Eileen]

I love it! thanks,
Eileen

[Alan Baker]

I like this.

"from
sapphire to cerulean to cobalt,
its numerousness, its many-

and-variousness amazed him."

Great lines.
Alan