Thursday, August 7, 2014

the Angel

Carve me an angel, sculptor, and let your stone be white,
So white that it will shimmer, reflecting back the light;
Give it a semblance, sculptor, a form and shape like this:
A lassie wee and drowsy, who gives a goodnight kiss,
Too weary from all her playing to open her lips to speak
And carve the chubby fingers that touch her mother's cheek;
Ah, and she needs no halo-simply a wayward curl;
That is an angel, sculptor-somebody's little girl.
Carve us a mother holding her baby in her arms,
Wonderful, tender, hopeful, sweet she must be and wise,
And with the light of heaven glimmering in her eyes.
That is an angel, sculptor-see that you carve it sure,
Showing the love that surges out from a soul all pure.
Carve me an angel, sculptor. Carve us a woman, old,
And grave in all the wrinkles her withered cheeks must hold
Wrinkles that tell of sorrow, lines that the laughs have left,
Give her the knotted fingers no longer quick and deft;
Bend her with stress of toiling, bow her with weight of years,
Show us the golden beauty wrought of her smiles and tears;
Tell in the stone the story, how she is wan and worn
Through all her self denial for the ones that she has borne.
That is an angel, sculptor. Grave it, and carve it so,
And all the world will see it- see it, and bow, and know.

Wilbur D. Nesbit
From Mr. Nesbit's book, "The Paths of Long Ago."


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