When you have lived forever in a state of disaster
A poem and short film
Hi friends, just wanted to share again this incredible film that director Michael Vanderpool created for my poem What the Angels Wonder. Check out more of his work over on his website. And click on full screen, it’s worth it!
What the Angels Wonder
Jessica Kantrowitz
Angels fear to tread these paths, Beloved
but you and I, we have no fear of either God or demons
God having already laid us this low
and our demons so familiar, if not friends.
Nothing can scare you
when you have lived forever in a state of disaster.
Angels wonder how we manage
with our flesh so prone to pain
Hearts so broken and broken again
before the first break can heal.
Spirits – yes, they understand spirits
but this crushing of spirits, no, nor this
fluttering hope.
Angels long to look into these things
as we long to soar above them.
But what they know only in theory
we must live to learn in our bodies:
That as Rumi said, the cure for the pain
is in the pain. So we breathe (and angel wings fan oxygen)
and we hurt and breathe and hurt, again.
***
Film by Michael Vanderpool
Poem from Blessings for the Long Night: Poems and Meditations to Help You through Depression
Music by The Before Time Orchestra