All Soul’s Eve

by Ann Quinn


Deus, in adiutorium meum intende

the beauty intensifies just before dusk—leaves become luminous
a glow enters the eye, a plainsong
message from the dying sun

clouds in every form
frail shrouds to mighty steel-sided ships

and what you believed in, and what shone from you
magnified right before the end
numinous in the last long rays

all questions are unanswerable, so why not live the answer
that is oneness, love

air the paradox, ungraspable
just as the hand closes around, the wind steals it

better to let it carry you

under it all, a deep stillness
the sky a fresco—a quotidian mystery

the moon, a broken wafer
multiplied in countless chalices formed of the earth’s vestments

Vespers—as it was, it will be, forever—for a moment I understand
then Angelus, and the shadows lengthen until they vanish
Compline—a long darkness, but now I can discern Venus
           
stars beginning to pierce the veil
and I know that they are numberless
if only I could see—


* * * * *

“All Soul’s Eve” was Ann Quinn’s first ever submission and first publication, in Britain’s Anima journal. It is also a part of her chapbook, Final Deployment, from Finishing Line Press, and is dedicated to her mother, Jane Soper Quinn.

Ann Quinn is a poet and creative writing teacher in Catonsville, Maryland. She is poetry editor for Yellow Arrow Publishing and teaches for Yellow Arrow and for the Writer’s Center in Bethesda. Visit www.annquinn.net