Poem 148: Prelude to Letting an Angel Pass

Many are the crippled shadows that have passed this way across the
stone square, paved with weeping and the flowers that an old lady dressed entirely in soft black light will sell to you. She sits behind the diamond pillar of day and night and occasionally tilts her head back to rest on the sun warmed stone.
Her face welcomes the soft rain. They are old friends. She is bathed by the
wondrous rivers that flow down the lines of her face. Summer storms in the
wells of her eyes, and you can see all the seasons moving in her face under
the surface of her skin. She is mistress of all that you survey. She is guardian
of the gate that allows you access to you. The play of her hands directs the
passage of worlds. She is in the state of eternal rest and eternal movement.
At her bidding the wolf will devour itself, the lamb will trample down a bush
of thorns, the unicorn will utter a fierce and slaying call, the lion garners
a mane full of stars, and the dove will bury its head under the wing of the sun.