Angel By Keith Melton

Angel 
			
By fate’s account, beauty a witness lost
Each year succumbs to its frightened host
And gathers our allegiance to depart
From signs of aerie youth, in clumsy birth.

Yet trust in dark debate is gentle promise
Litany to forsake each quiet moment
A guise to lift the broken coil
Of faith to exegesis, our grieving spoils

In waiting, not still but willed to a song 
Of God?  To rise eternal on wings of cloud
While the sky gleams vault, His gift of light
A pious levity in relief of night?

Yet wounded lives, slender in the end, do climb 
To meet the spirit’s praise, brave ether staunch in haste?

Mr. Melton holds a Master’s Degree in City Planning from Georgia Tech and a BA in Economics and International Studies from the American University. He previously has served as Director of Planning and Program Development for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA); as well as VP of Development for both the Atlanta Economic Development Corp. and the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce (Metro Atlanta). His poems have been published in numerous periodicals.