Word Over All, Beautiful as Sky
        Chagall windows, Mainz

The tall doors I thought bolted
gave way and swung with such
well-oiled ease, I lurched forward a step,
and stunned, breathed a blue mild
as the arms that held the infant Tobias,
a blue that glows at the core of silver,
blue of comets at the zenith, blue glint
of armor angels wear on errands to earth.
In no way I could conceive of was that blue
a lie, a pretty delusion, a hoped-for answer
to the question we keep asking empty
space that never says anything in reply.
It was the divine itself, though I believe in
no such thing, besides the necessity of it
struggling toward us through the layers,
returning from its exile in the absolute
zero of the void, what is possible always
asserting its fidelity to this world,
full to its brim with sorrows. There,
high on the walls of chancel and nave
twice reduced to ruins by war, the blue
of reconciliation, word over all, beautiful as sky,
blue a man, no god, conceived of
in the final year of his life, an old man,
full to the brim with praise, despite
the farce that deformed entire peoples
and scattered us like pieces of broken bell.
That man, even as he fell into oblivion, fell
without a trace of regret, this radiance
pouring from his mind, blue we know
isn't suitable for shelter, isn't an angel
bearing good tidings to earth, nor armor
that can protect a mother or her child.

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Copyright © 2013 David Axelrod All rights reserved
from What Next, Old Knife?
Lost Horse Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission