It'll Be All Right

Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing, some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

Hebrews 13.2

Sometimes a message
Plunges deep and clean as an arrow.

I looked left and there she was,
A tourist stranger like the others--
No gossamer wings with Gauzy feathers no
Harp glissandos,
No weeping clouds or silly halos.
That's not how it was.

Dim bulbs bathed the
Old Town's Kowerkorts Cafe in late March.
I sat alone on my tall bar stool
Pensive when she found me,
My restless soul yearning to stretch
Beyond the Baltic borders, the Nordic cities.
She came to me direct and unadorned,
Hair short and tinted, glasses thin-rimmed
Like her friend's and a thousand other Finns.

With a thunderclap,
Her simple words hit their mark,
Prophetic, so profound they stunned.
When I woke, the door was clicking shut.
"Wait!" I longed to shout.
I stepped outside onto the ice.
Nobody moved, no shadows nor retreating figures,
No movement left or right.
Only wind breathed along the street's canyon.
My stool sat empty.
I paid my bill, took my coat,
Headed home.

The angel's words found my soul
And set me free:
"It'll be all right.
It'll be all right."

(c)Christy Lumm

published in Skipping Stones 2007