If you wish to attend the read around (t’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). Note: If you registered already, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

Next Read-Around is 12/21/23 at 5:00 PM PST

How It Works:

  1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts below

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

My Thoughts

Angels are everywhere this time of year. You see them perched in trees and standing on shelves like silent sentries that bring good cheer. You see them in holiday movies, coming as messengers, restoring the world, and righting the lives of those who have lost their way. Most see them as figments, as fictional agents to entertain, as placeholders for our hopes and prayers. At best, we think of them as service staff for humans. Rarely do we think of how angels live their own lives, or how far they have fallen from their heyday since the age of reason stripped them of their wings.

We no longer witness their awesome powers, their range from dark to light. Instead, we have reduced them to ornaments on a tree, to cherubs and the winged innocence of children we wish we could recapture in ourselves. Cseslaw Milosz speaks directly to Angels about their plight in his poem, On Angels, Expressing his sympathy in the opening line: All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.  We no longer see them walking among us. We cast them up to the stars, a distant twinkle. But every once in a while, for thos who believe like Milosz and me, they appear, especially in the twilight between night and day, and we hear them wispering in the immortal language, coming through babbling brooks, or wind in trees, or the shimmering light on a brass doorknob, giving praise for the preciousness of life.

On Angels

All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence. Yet I believe you,
Messengers.

There, where the world is turned inside out,
a have a fabric embroidered with stars and beasts,
you stroll, inspecting the trust worthy seems.

Short is your stay here:
now and then add a matinal hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at the close of day
when the light makes the orchards magic.

They say somebody has invented you,
but to me this does not sound convincing
for humans invented themselves as well.
The voice – no doubt it is a valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless, and winged (after all why not?)
girdled with lightning.

I have heard the voice many a time when asleep,
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an earthly tongue:
day draws near
another one
do what you can.

—Csezlaw Milosz

Prompt Ideas

  1. Journal about or write your own poem On Angels. Write as if you are speaking to them, either as a group or to an individual angel.

  2. Journal or write a poem about a messenger angel in your life: perhaps it was writing on a wall or the words of a stranger; perhaps it was a sign from nature or a voice you could only hear in the heart. .

  3. Use the prompt: There, where the world is turned inside out… and free write whatever comes to mind.

  4. In what way do humans invent themselves? How have you invented yourslf? How might you re-invent yourself in the next iteration of you?

  5. Think of a time when you heard “the voiceof an angel” (human or otherwise). Journalor write about that voice and how it impacted you.

  6. Imagine an angel is speaking to you in a strange language that you somehow understand, more or less. What is the message?

  7. Milosz offers the Angel’s message from the early dawn: Day draws near, another one, do what you can. Whatodyou choose to do with this one day you have today?

  8. As usual, write about anything else in the poem or in life that inspires you.