The Magic Square (Albrecht Durer), Sonnet #467

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My Human Disguise.

The summer is an empty hourglass

I tumble through like a clump of sand

That cannot, trying very hard, pass

Through the neck and softly land

At the bulbs’ bottom, top or bottom,

Depending on the hour of the turn.

The asphalts and red bee balms burn

And the sun is a single blazing atom.

The bell has been silent, raising hope

(It all depends on squares and magic

And the diminution of the tragic)

That someday someone will tug on its rope,

Awakening the prayed-for lightning storm

That once our angel promised to reform.

Angel, Sonnet #409

Light is invisible until it hits

An object or penetrates the pupil.

No effort of intelligence or will

Can else know illumination’s spirits.

Real angels, it seems, are almost the same.

She can’t exist at all until I name

Her, with sounds I can’t think, and she appears,

The breeze from her wings allaying my fears.

She carries a small bouquet of flowers

And her raised right hand is empty, no sword

Or torch — hers are the powerless powers

I dare not test with even a whispered word.

Her wings buffet me — she rises to go.

I finally speak: “Stay.” Her smile says “no.”