Wings

On medieval paintings at the Art Museum of Basel
Angels with eagle wings, intricate
as fugues, set to scythe eternity,
but empty robes — just drapery
arranged like a small wind.
Artists who painted them had bodies
inside their robes, and wings
visible only to the eyes
of posterity.
Saints, hovering in between —
some barbaric in armour:
the daemonic divine …
("Oh Lord,
preserve us from the wrath of Thy saints!')
Still others, thin and vulnerable
as reeds, wait with eyes brimming
like waterdrops before light's wafer,
the gift of peace …
Brushes, wingtips:
how the gold of vision endures,
humility and hope steadfast, bonding
these haloed figures in earth as they turn
with the gravity of sunflowers towards
an unseen zenith.