Author's Notes: A sestina for heaven's most wayward angel.
In the beginning, there was the Dark.
And in that dark, a spark of grace,
And within that spark, I had a name.
I had a purpose: heaven's soldier,
set against the powers of Hell.
That was my destiny; that was my fate.
But it has its charms and quirks, does fate.
We cannot always see, watching, above the dark.
Between the vaults of heaven and the depths of hell,
sometimes there is more than grace —
something terrible and fragile as a soldier,
but not without flesh or purpose or name.
I left heaven to discern the name
of the one who would later decide my fate:
the one who was the son of a soldier
and had lived knowing too much of the dark.
I laid on him my hand and my grace
and raised him up from Hell.
Too much then did I learn of hell —
of writhing and nightmares and beasts with ill names.
For his sake, I gave up my grace,
my obedience, my loyalty, my appointed fate.
For the first time, I feared the dark
and what might become of me, no more a soldier.
But a rebel's nerve befits a soldier,
and with him I took up arms against hell,
fighting the long defeat against the dark,
plunging into dangers and voids without name.
Death, it turns out, has nothing on fate.
And even in the dying, there is a possibility of grace.
Though wrecked, dishonored, bereft of grace
I can still carry myself as a soldier:
tall and determined against the advent of fate.
Despite the viciousness of heaven and the temptations of hell,
I know my purpose, and I know my name.
His presence at my shoulder, I can go into the dark.
My soldier whispers a prayer that contains my name;
I come to him in the sweetness of the dark, the ache of absent grace.
Even now I wonder — is it hell? Or is it fate?