The Angel's Shadow

It was not fire.

It was not voice.

It came clothed in wings

that cut the air like blades,

each feather a shard of light.

I saw it at the mouth of the storm—

halo fractured,

eyes burning as if lit

by the grief of creation itself.

I reached for my bow,

but my hands dissolved.

I called out,

but my throat filled with ash.

The angel turned,

not to flee,

but to remind me

that pursuit is always

a kind of worship.

Its shadow passed over me,

a veil vast as night,

and in that darkness

I felt my own shape falter—

as if my body

were only the echo

of something I had forgotten.

When the light broke,

it was gone.

But the ground where it walked

still trembled,

and the sky would not

return to silence.