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| From the book The Beginning of a Book |  |
The Angel of Rheims
For François Fédier
Are you ready?
This angel smiles –
I ask, although I know
That you are doubtless ready:
For I am not speaking to just anyone,
But to you,
One whose heart will not survive the betrayal
Of your earthly king,
Who was crowned here before all the people,
Or of your other Lord,
The King of Heaven, our Lamb,
Who dies in the hope
That you will hear me again;
Again and again,
As every evening
My name is rung out by the bells
Here, in the country of excellent wheat
And bright grapes,
And tassel and cluster
Trembling respond –
But all the same,
Set in this pink crumbling stone,
I raise my hand,
Broken off in the World War.
All the same, let me remind you:
Are you ready?
For plague, famine, earthquake, fire,
Foreign invasions, wrath visited upon us?
All this is doubtless important.
But it is not what I mean.
It is not what I was sent for.
I say:
Are you
Ready
For unbelievable joy?
Larissa Volokhonsky and Emily Grosholz | |
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