The White Angel Poem by Daniel Brick

A response to a poem by Konstantin Balmont

The White Angel has lived for eons
in exile from Heaven, even from its grace
which flows in immense currents over creatures
and humans alike. The Higher Angels deemed it
prudent to add humiliation to his suffering.
'Every creature can overcome the suffering
allotted to him.' And so just before they beat
their immense wings and ascended in perfect flight.
they concluded, 'The White Angel will endure
this further suffering.' The White Angel expected
such turns of fate, he was not one to complain.
But he deemed it prudent to disguise his identity
on earth, lest another creature appeal to him
for spiritual help he could not deliver. And thus
the White Angel became a simple white bird, who
lived slightly apart from other birds, and perched
on branches high above humans, who rarely looked up.

The white bird blended into nature: all night he hid
in shadows that made his feathers lose their brilliance
and gradually the many colors that make up white
drained away, leaving behind a dull and dirty color
which words cannot name. But the white bird was
not born to be a creature of the night: night has no hold
over him. Was it not the quiet affirmation of his angelic
nature that the very earliest dawn-light was attracted
to him? Those first rays, not yet visible to animal eyes,
spread themselves evenly across his body and reclaimed him
as a Creature of Light. From where he perched so high,
on the slender top branches that swayed back and forth
in the slightest breeze, the white bird, perfect still,
blazed with a radiance that nature did not ignite. It was
the daily grace that flowed impartially at such heights,
and recognized in the white bird an inner glory its humble
shape enhanced. Even the Higher Angels descending quickly
with the morning light recognized in the white bird's
brightness their arrogant error. And in a flash of light,
composed equally of natural and supernatural energies,
the white bird was changed into the White Angel, and
he ascended unaccompanied to the summons of the Highest Heaven,
his suffering fulfilled, his radiance restored, his divine life
resumed, as dawnlight reflected his white beauty.