The Archangel’s Descent

A terza rima vision of Saint Michael’s victory

Riding ardent wings of heaven’s fire,
You descended from the vault on high,
A shard of morning from the golden spire.

The trembling firmament received your cry;
A clarion tore the shuddering air apart,
And night collapsed before your eye.

Your lifted blade became a searing art
That wrote its judgment through the wounded sky,
A blazing scripture branded on the heart.

The ancient serpent coiled in ruin nearby,
Its shadow throttling ocean, field, and land,
A suffocating tempest heaved the sky.

Yet unwavering burned your lifted hand;
No tremor touched the consecrated flame
Heaven entrusted to your command.

You spoke the adversary’s secret name,
And all creation tightened into a breadth,
While silence ripened into holy shame.

The dragon roared of empires ground to death,
Of crowns devoured and dynasties undone,
Of mortal dust beneath its poisoned breath.

But through the dread your morning had begun,
A lance of dawn that pierced the ancient blight,
The first bright wound of worlds remade and won.

You cast the tyrant from the bleeding height,
Into the gulf that gaped to claim its king,
And struck until the constellations dimmed their light.

Then heaven pealed with thunder of your wing,
And earth beheld the vanquished darkness fall
Like cindered pride that lost the will to cling.

The dawn restored the wounded, one and all,
And in the hush that followed broken night
Your shadow thinned along the silent wall.

Yet still we turn toward that conquering light
And whisper when the gathering tempests swell:
Defend us in the everlasting fight.