Cherubim – mysterious when imagined
Garden keepers with sword aflame
Face of eagle, man, and lion
Ark guardians of the mercy seat
It is said the Lord sits enthroned
Upon the cherubim
The priest reminded at every turn
By angelic temple ornaments
Ezekiel writes of them
With wheels which turn upon their side
Threshold of the voice of God
Wings twenty forearms wide
Were these the kind of host who met
Those shepherds in their field
While the stable of an inn nearby
A temple was revealed?
The fiery attendants
Great fear undoubtedly roused
The first words to the weathered men
Telling, ‘do not be afraid’
They bring good news of peace on earth
Guarded garden now set free
The second Adam born nearby
And the angel’s sword is sheathed
And so the shepherds began their trip
From field to road to town
Until vestibule they came upon
And one by one bowed down
The rest of the poems from Rusten Harris’s Advent series on Moss Kingdom:
Incarnation, Christmas Eve, Kings, Some Kind of Glory, Chains, Gifts, Quotidian Couple, A Thousand Lights, Eve & Mary, Treasured Up, Christmas, Winter Staves, The Glorias, Cherubim, Joseph, Strange Redeemer, Womb, Magi, Temple Trough, Advent, Lord’s Day, Far as the Curse is Found, Jubilee, The Massacre of the Innocents, Liturgical Time
Other Advent poems on Moss Kingdom:
December 21: an Advent poem for the Winter Solstice, Of Edmund and Aslan, Tiptoe Hope, The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
