Free Among Angels by Jane Yolen Page A

Next, a style sheet that reads these tags must be designed, so that the formal elements of the poems are always displayed consistently. For instance, the style sheet reads the tags marking lines that the author himself has indented; should that indented line exceed the character capacity of a screen, the run-over part of the line will be indented further, and all such runovers will look the same. This combination of appropriate coding choices and style sheets makes it easy to display poems with complex indentations, no matter if the lines are metered or free, end-stopped or enjambed.
    Ultimately, there may be no way to account for every single variation in the way in which the lines of a poem are disposed visually on an electronic reading device, just as rare variations may challenge the conventions of the printed page, but with rigorous quality assessment and scrupulous proofreading, nearly every poem can be set electronically in accordance with its author’s intention. And in some regards, electronic typesetting increases our capacity to transcribe a poem accurately: In a printed book, there may be no way to distinguish a stanza break from a page break, but with an ereader, one has only to resize the text in question to discover if a break at the bottom of a page is intentional or accidental.
    Our goal in bringing out poetry in fully reflowable digital editions is to honor the sanctity of line and stanza as meticulously as possible—to allow readers to feel assured that the way the lines appear on the screen is an accurate embodiment of the way the author wants the lines to sound. Ever since poems began to be written down, the manner in which they ought to be written down has seemed equivocal; ambiguities have always resulted. By taking advantage of the technologies available in our time, our goal is to deliver the most satisfying reading experience possible.

Prayer
    Angel of lost spectacles
    and hens’ teeth,
    angel of snow’s breath
    and the insomnia
    of cats, angel
    of snapshots fading
    to infinity,
    don’t drop me—
    shoeless,
    wingless.
    Defender of burrows,
    carry me—
    carry me
    in your pocket of light.
    â€” NANCY WILLARD

Pistis Sophia: A Dispatch
    She took the twisting serpent in hand,
    its tail twined around her arm;
    pumping mighty wings she flew
    along the trails of sky.
    The garden was still except for the two
    down by the river, naming the reeds.
    She dropped the serpent by the apple tree,
    then, following celestial orders,
    flew back across the infinite blue.
    Reports of strife on the back streets
    and strikes by cherubim
    occupied her long past the Fall.
    In the Spring—she heard—
    the two were served a sharp, swift eviction.
    By then all Heaven was in an uproar,
    so what did the Earth matter?
    â€” JANE YOLEN

The garden was still except for the two/down by the river, naming the reeds.
    â€” Jane Yolen
    Angel among the Herbs
    Angelica archangelica ,
    herb of the archangel Michael
    on whose feast day you bloom,
    you are not beautiful.
    It is said that a monk
    fell asleep and saw you,
    tall, gawky,
    singular as celery,
    peering over the rose’s shoulder,
    the lily’s cradle,
    and woke singing
    your praises.
    You strengthen the heart,
    unbind the lungs,
    untrouble the stomach,
    blow out bad spirits.
    Let the juice of angelica
    fall on deaf ears.
    They will hear
    the heartbeats of angels
    and the dead coming back
    in your roots
    calling our names
    in your green tongue.
    â€” NANCY WILLARD

An Angel Considers the Naming of Meat
    Whatever this was, with its arms and skirt,
    crowned and winged and all-seeing,
    it was no mere grazer. Crown roast ,
    butterfly chop, arm pot roast, skirt steak ,
    eye round . And what’s left
    is large and curious as a fallen tree,
    split open, a breached tomb of roseate marble.
    Seven ribs stand up in a sea of fat.
    Like rowers they lean into the wind.
    Once they rocked as one, in out, in out,
    pushed by the breath of the