An Angel, Unless on Assignment

An angel, unless on assignment
And straying off accustomed rounds, will
Stare into our world and there behold
A vast, indeed a dreary darkness
Unfathomable like an unlit
Morgue in which our own small earth is but
A mote of sin we do not see in
Our own eyes. Or so we’re told by that
Old Nordic Master, Emanuel
Swedenborg.

Why does the angel fail to see the
Piercing rays of sun, those vast flames that
As thinned out magnetism disturb our
Televised reality, our shows, our
Fun and games, and havoc play with rays
That bounce off satellites to feed an IPod
Here from one held over there half of a
Continent away? Why can’t the angel be
Like me, see what I see, and hear my
Sounds?

Old Swedenborg did not explain but
Spoke as one who just reports on what
He’s seen or had been told up in that
Lofty mansion by the very principals
Involved, by angels who at times held
Conversation with our sage and said
What they experienced, not what our
Ground-based speculators thought that an
Essence ought to see and hear from yonder
Station.

Aye, here’s the rub. As down below so
It is up above. We know the High
Or Its creation directly by
Experience, be we angels or
Mere ordinary guys and dolls, young,
Old, it doesn’t matter much because
The most refined and sharply honed
Of intellects must still cling to that
Ultimate, the base, that which we know
As our gold.