Gabriel The Father sent me, so of course I went. The planet and the village both were small. I was to tell her of the Lord’s intent to mitigate the sickness of the Fall. I saw her praying, and she seemed to me an ordinary, not-so-pretty girl. But when she spoke she seemed an almond tree about the time its tender blooms unfurl. When I’d arrived, I was to say, “Fear not.” But when I’d had my say, she looked at me with eyes that held me rooted to the spot. “I am a leaf,” she said. “He is the sea.” Amazed by these few words, I took my leave, and marveled how the Father knew his child. Yet, curious, I hung about the eave to see her candor. Then she knelt and smiled.
John J. Brugaletta has eight volumes of his poetry in print, the latest of which is One of the Loaves Was Yours. He is professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton, where he taught courses in the works of C. S. Lewis, Shakespeare, Dante, and Homer.
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