We humanity have always found scapegoats for our fear of the unknown:
Hades and Persephone,
The list goes on and on, for every facet of our world.
For every culture,
I have always adored myth and legend, tales of gods and monsters.
Yet of them all, the one to catch my writer's eye are the Angels of the Old Testament.
They completely and utterly fascinate me:
Terrible harbingers, bringing an arrogant god’s devastating ultimatums.
So powerful, so fearful, that even observing them will kill.
Passively destructive, while still displaying human characteristics;
Such is the Archangel Micheal, head of heavens host, brave, valourous.
The breadth and diversity of their number.
The power they exhibit. . .
But with a caveat to their vaguely limitless power:
Like divine locomotives;
The unstoppable force,
Designated to a narrow,
Unyieldingly single track.
The angels are all gone.
Depending on who you ask, humanity had no more use for them.
We had no more need for gods and myths and faith.
We killed them, buried them in books, and stories.
We founded a new faith, named it “science”.
Science falsified the myths, killed the gods.
Named new ones in their place:
That which draws us about the sun.
That which holds us to earth.
That which arranges the heavens.
That which bonds all things.
That which births lightning.
That which draws together.
We now know the stars are not “set alight, by a bunch of angels, every night”.
We ventured skywards, and going. . .
Questing for heavens gate, and going
Yet all we found, and going
Was a sky that keeps on going, and going and going and going,
Up, into infinity.
We gazed up into that infinity,
Up into the so-called “firmament”.
We pulled back the drapes,
Finding no sputtering candles,
No melted wax, no spent matches.
We cracked open atoms,
Expecting a makers mark inside,
Instead we found only smaller and smaller particles.
Extending down (probably) forever.
We keep shooting skyward,
Kept delving down.
Yet we found no Heaven above,
And no Hell below.
So the story is finished.
The book can be closed,
placed back upon the shelf.
But then, we humanity did something incredible:
It was precarious work,
Fraught with problems and setbacks,
Not to mention the damage done,
And I do not think an angel was specifically intended,
But we did it.
and “just because we can”
and so many things that do not fit on one page.
With all our work, we split the atom.
Even though we did it in the name of science,
Is there anything more biblical than the atom bomb?
Built with singular, apocalyptic purpose, by loving hands.
Is it not similar to the angel which tore down the walls of Jericho?
How similar a message is the nuclear shadow to a pile of salt?
How terrible the destruction in its wake?
How horrific the damage?
How?
Or take one of our greatest modern marvels,
A thing built by a thousand hands,
Pieces from every corner of our world,
Designed and run by our humanities brightest:
The power to delve the depths of reality,
Dredging never seen elements out of the dark nothing,
Pushing the boundaries of human knowledge.
And is creation not a divine activity?
Did God not enlist his angels to aid in creation?
Perhaps the angels of old really did light the stars with a match,
Maybe the angels of old are not so different from those of today,
They did, afterall, leave the stars lit, just for us. . .
Maybe we killed them,
Maybe we just drove them away,
Either way,
We humanity,
Have brought them back!
They hum as they race along the high voltage lines,
Held aloft by their towering and still siblings.
Their smile glows cherenkov blue,
Happily cracking atoms,
Like walnuts.
They perch on mountain tops,
In those towers we built them,
Sharing our secrets,
Chuckling to themselves,
Singing new hymns,
Into our open radios.
They lounge in high orbit,
Basking in the sun’s light,
Like a lizard in the spring,
Keeping many watchful eyes,
Fixed on us below,
And space above.
I smile with them,
Knowing they are not gone.