Luci Shaw & Worku Goshu

Luci Shaw: Angels Everywhere (poem) & Worku Goshu: Silent Night (painting)

ANGELS EVERYWHERE

by Luci Shaw

Some days I notice angels everywhere,
light glancing through windows, flying
through window glass as if it were air.
A human ear shaped like a wing,
curiously curving to admit the flare
of sound, hints to me of angels listening
to my listening, even as I sing.
What is that vagrant cloud, glistening?
Often in the blue heaven a trail
of light from a plane to me appears
as a heavenly body playing up there
beyond my grasping. Or, the tail-
light of a highway truck sends a spark
like some twinkly being in the dark
trailing her glory robe in sight
of stationary watchers. Once, daylight,
and a sudden, surprising, newer view,
when over the marshy grass a winged flight
invites a vision—Gabriel, or a Great Blue?
But often, through my twilight’s skylight
asterisks multiply like silver sand and, near to far,
I link my self again each night with Oh!
One bright, angelic, particular star.

****

From Lucy Shaw's new book of poems titled "Angels Everywhere" to be released in March 2022 by Paraclete Press. Copyright: Luci Shaw, used with permission.

Lucy Shaw was born in 1928 in London, England, and has lived in Canada, Australia and the U.S.A. A 1953 high honors graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois, she became co-founder and later president of Harold Shaw Publishers. Shaw is a frequent retreat facilitator and leads writing workshops in church and university settings. She has lectured in North America and abroad on topics such as art and spirituality, the Christian imagination, poetry-writing, and journal-writing as an aid to artistic and spiritual growth. Shaw is author of ten volumes of poetry and of a long list of books.  Her most recent books are What the Light Was Like (Word Farm), Accompanied by Angels (Eerdmans), The Genesis of It All (Paraclete), and Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination & Spirit (Nelson). She and her husband John Hoyte live in Bellingham. See www.lucishaw.com.

Worku Goshu: Silent Night.

Worku Goshu, a prominent Ethiopian contemporary artist, was born in 1942 inAmbo, Ethiopia, into the family of a judge. His grandfather was a man experienced in the art of calligraphy of religious books. Worku joined the School of Fine Arts in Addis Ababa from which he graduated in 1963. That same year he left Ethiopia for Poland and spent 6 years there, studying art in Krakow, particularly focusing on Pure and Applied Graphic Art. His work for his MFA is a beautifully illustrated story of the Queen of Sheba. In Krakow, at the Academy of Fine Arts, he met his wife Barbara, a Polish artist who developed a great love for Ethiopian traditions in her iconographic spiritual art of wood and stone. After graduating from Krakow Academy of Fine Arts in 1969 Worku and Barbara returned to Ethiopia and started a joint career in their own fields of talent, producing work which has been displayed in numerous national and international exhibitions. Worku also taught at the School of Art and Design of Addis Ababa University as a professor in the Department of Painting for more than 27 years. Presently Worku paints and runs the Goshu Gallery in Addis Ababa with his wife Barbara, see http://www.goshugalleries.com/about.htm

---