Aliferous
And the likeness of a hand was put forth and took me by a lock of my head, and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven…. And behold the glory of the God of Israel was there…. New Catholic Bible. Ezekiel 8:3 & 4.
Whoops! There he goes again!
No Zulu Flight Plan filed….
the moment, the moment.
It could be the name of Jesus, the sound of a
bell, the unfolding of numinous flower petals,
all could elicit ecstasy.
In infant opportunities,
salmon-flash,
a salting,
Radiance.
And suddenly Joseph is at an altitude…
2 meters …
soaring toward the high altar, or toward an
olive tree.
No fuselage, no flaps, no throttle.
Magnetized to the beauty of the
sacred,
seized by the celestial talons
of rapture,
he levitates.
Unconscious of everything except the
Divine, he is oblivious to pain,
called back only
by the ending of
meditation or the voice of his
superior.
As a child he had been called
“Bocca Aperta,” because of his gaping mouth,
and later the Franciscans
labelled him “remarkably unclever.”
He suffered the slights of tongues whispering
“witchcraft” and “wizardry.”
Enduring frequent transfers between
communities, he
was isolated for 35 years;
not allowed to attend choir, refectory, or
say Mass.
Confined to his cell, he was cloistered,
a prisoner
Born in a stable, apprenticed to a cobbler,
he never learned to make shoes…
as if he needed any for his journey.
Ann Power is a retired faculty member from The University of Alabama. She enjoys writing historical sketches as well as poems based in the kingdoms of magical realism. Her work has appeared in: Spillway, Gargoyle Magazine, The Birmingham Poetry Review, Dappled Things, The Copperfield Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The Loch Raven Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, Amethyst Review, and other publications. She was nominated for Best of the Net in Poetry for her poem, “Ice Palace.”
Amethyst Review 