Pageant
 

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Angels


We waited in our pews for them to appear,
the angels, assembling in the church basement,
dozens of them wielding yellow electric candlesticks,
their heads haloed in feathers, wearing silly smiles
and flowing robes that ballooned when they twirled
and laughed while they waited for their call.
Then came the moment when the harpist played
an angelic hymn and heaven opened its gates
as they ascended the stairs and entered the nave
to set our hearts afire and restore our faith for the moment.

On our way home I remember how I used to have one
all my own named, disarmingly, My Guardian Angel,
who perched on my shoulder, always had my back,
said bedtime prayers with me, protected me against darkness
and from my parents fighting downstairs in the glaring light
late into the night, when I couldn’t find a way to go to sleep.

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Hi, Jim—

This poem transported me back to my own Catholic childhood. I had the picture of the guardian angel protecting the little boy and girl crossing a rickety bridge on my wall, until I swapped it for a poster of a Corvette stingray. I, too, remember praying, “Angel of God, my guardian dear. . .”

I almost felt like the two stanzas were two separate poems about angels. The first ten lines focus on the heartwarming nostalgia of Christmas pageants. The angelic innocence of the children enjoying cosplay as angels reminds the adult N of his own youthful faith and rekindles it “for a moment.” The last six lines go to a darker place, suggesting that the guardian angel was a comforting but ineffectual myth, unable to help the troubled N as a child find sleep and peace. Did you intend for the reader to conclude that angels are nostalgic and charming, but ultimately ineffective protectors of children? I find myself wanting something to yoke the two stanzas together more definitely.

In S2L2 I wondered about the choice of “disarmingly.” I would have expected “predictably” or “unimaginatively” considering that the name is simply an impersonal title. Maybe you are suggesting that guardian angels can’t really be known by a distinctive name or befriended and touched as a human, or pet animal, or even a doll or action figure might be. If that is your intent, how about “officially” or “imperiously?” Or maybe “distantly” or “impersonally?”

I enjoyed the poem. You vividly recreate the pre-performance excitement of both children performers and adult spectators at the Christmas pageant in S1.

Glenn

I just read this, Jim, but I wanted to jump right in and say that I love the first stanza—it’s among the best that I’ve read from you. Starting right from the first line—just a terrific first line, imo. I am, however, thinking that “in” the moment would be a more interesting way to end that scene. But it’s early and it’s possible that I’ll change my mind. And I might break on “faith,” with “in the moment.” beginning the second stanza. You may also want to lose, find another word for the “moment” in line 7.

But I almost want to just stay in the moment of the first stanza. I don’t think the second stanza is bad, but it seems more tacked on and, in my view, seems to strain to get to a conflict, some drama. I too often find myself doing the same thing and I feel that here. If you do keep it, I’d suggest perhaps a more interesting name for your angel? “My Guardian Angel” is about as generic as you can get. Isn’t that what many/most Christians call it anyway? How about Brian? Haha. Seriously, though, I’d do something more interesting with that. Anyway, the first stanza is well worth the price of admission as they say. Love it.

Hi Jim,

Just stopping in briefly to say how much I like the first stanza's description of the kids staging backstage—such nice details that I don't see any need of intrusive prosody to dress it up. I will disagree with anyone who calls it prosy. I missed my nap today and have to go to bed, but I hope to come back. I have this thing going on in my mind lately about being jarred when seeing the connection/comparison between two conceits in a poem. I called it a necessary artifice when I critiqued one of David's poems. Anyway, I'm too groggy to talk about S2.

All the best,
Jim

Jim, I like the first stanza quite a bit. You manage to inject a sense of the myth into the church ritual. The reader can feel the event as well as see it and you do it in a way that seems effortless. For me the turn into the second stanza muddies that too much. It slips into bathos. I think there can be a way to deliver what is in the second stanza that stands well with the first. Without "My Guardian Angel" on the shoulder, for example. That's simply too familiar, so very expected, in comparison with S1.

I hope this helps.

I think you need the second stanza, Jim, but I also think it needs to be rewritten. You are, it seems to me, using a childlike voice there, which makes sense because the N is remembering childhood - except that the N is now an adult with an adult perspective on his childhood, as he has an adult perspective on the pageant. I think we need to hear more of the adult voice in S2. Which doesn't mean it needs to be darker or more cynical, just more ... aware, perhaps?

I think the second stanza is key to the poem. It shows how a child’s world is not all cute and pretty. Children have real worries and anxieties. I think if you were to explore more of the child’s needs, their hopes for magical intervention to make things right between their parents, it would make the poem stronger. Currently, the child’s Guardian Angel might too easily be dismissed as just another cute delusion. I’d like a little more pain I think.

Maybe it's because it's Christmas Eve, but I think My Guardian Angel works, evoking the child's mind as it was at the time. You could maybe tinker with the second stanza a bit, but I think the form of the poem as a while is essentially there. It's just the tinkering (but not too much).

Cheers

David