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On Seraphim: a poem by D. N. Keane


Photo: woman with arms lifted, looking up toward a yellow sunburst sky, image by Daniel Reche, on Pixabay.




















image by Daniel Reche, on Pixabay


On Seraphim



Beholding them through heaven’s opened door, 

(As once Isaiah when Uzziah died)

St. John said seraphim cease not to sing

Trisagion as with their beating wings

They orbit round the rainbow throne in rapt

Delight with all their many eyes agreed

And fixed upon the One in session there,

Whose footstool is the earth and yet exceeds

All space in his immensity, and light

In radiance, so that beneath four wings

Each seraph hides—with only twain they fly.

As each one cries out ‘holy,’ each returns

With ‘holy’ louder still until they all

Exceed to conflagration; after which,

As if new born, they all begin again.

Their ardor so devours them that they

Must only vaguely know of us at all 

And what they know cannot much interest them.

What condescension—oh what pain it was

(at least we must suppose) when light of light

Bid one of them to turn, to pause the hymn,

And cauterize a prophet’s lips with coal. 

And yet to which of them did God pronounce, 

‘Thou art my Son… I have begotten thee.’?

 

 



Scripture references: Isaiah 6: 1-7, Isaiah 66:1,

Revelation 4:8-11, and Psalm 2:7




_____________________






D. N. Keane has a Ph.D. from the University of St. Andrews and teaches in the English Department

at Georgia Southern University. His verse has

appeared in Lighten Up, Better Than Starbucks, 

Earth & Altar, and The Slumbering Host (Little

Gidding Press, 2019). More of his work is available at drewkeane.com









November 2024 issue

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cmbharris
cmbharris
17 de nov.

An amazing poem by D. N. Keane.

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