The White Angel

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.