Art in Life

Today, I painted An Angel Playing a Flageolet

by Burne-Jones in a fancy coloring book

for grown-ups -- enamel in bold greens, flowing red

angel dress, off-white wings, golden hair,

and read about how the writer Katherine Mansfield

died of tuberculosis trying to be healed

at the home of a spiritual leader who directed

her to sleep above the cowshed;

the environment

would ease her pain, he said.

Her letters from there suggest she was treated well

and had found inner peace. An artist painted

her walls with murals.

I do not know if there were angels.

She died shortly

after this, at thirty-five.

I imagine this angel in flaming red on my dinner table

witnessed the whole encounter,

and has come to bring Katherine back

in paper stained glass.

I’ve unfolded her wings

to show her she is still human.

She has never listened to Bob Marley before,

reborn, along with Burne-Jones. All three spiritual

leaders, bound to save me.

I have no cowshed, but there is an art

studio upstairs. We can cover ourselves

in gold leaf or fig leaf, take up instruments

of salvation in the form of paint brushes,

and smoke ourselves back into the 19th century,

all folded together into wings,

fresh from God’s glory on high, on high,

for angels we have heard, in our own bright mural.

Next Chapter: Fireflies