He stood in the midst of the swirling chaos, and looked into the faces of his children not yet born.  He saw confusion and pain, and he saw fear.  He stretched out his hand across centuries, and touched the heart of the poet.

"Write!"  He commanded.

The poet wrote!

~*~

It was just beginning to turn into summer in Arizona, the heat radiated from a sweltering wilderness back into cloudless blue.  Nothing was stirring as far as the eye could see.  Thunder echoed from the ruptured white flower of a sonic boom at fifty-two thousand feet, as a solitary figure plummeted earthward.

Metatron raced toward the city at phenomenal speed, then began to slow as he neared his destination.  His ever-vigilant eyesight pierced right through the walls of the building below him and revealed the figure he sought.  Flaring his wings, he dropped through the roof, and came to rest in a hospital room.

The room blazed with light, as Tristan drew his sword in salute.  "Hail Metatron!"

Metatron acknowledged the salute, and stepped close to the bed.  "She  is afraid!"  He said, more to himself than Tristan.

"Yes!  She has  been prepared."

Metatron shook his head.  This cure was exceedingly primitive, but it was all these mortals had.  He could feel the heat of fever without touching her.  He leaned over the child, amazed at the incredible resilience of the human body.  He reached out and caressed her cheek.  Sparkling light swept across it behind his hand.  His mind was in the past -- just eight years had elapsed since he'd been given this mission.

On the day Adrianne was conceived, the Most High had summoned Metatron, and assigned him to protect her.  He had reached out his hand, touched the egg, and it divided instantly.  "I have given her a twin sister, Metatron.  She will need her.  From this time forth, they will not be alone.  They will love each other, and this love will save their lives."

"She stirs!"  Tristan's observation recalled him to the present.

"Yes!  This will be the fight of her life,"   said Metatron, "but she will win!  She has been given bone marrow from her twin sister."

He touched her again, and a soft light spread through her.  Her fear and sickness turned to peace, and she fell asleep.

Leaning down to her watching mother, he laid his sword in her lap and flipped open the pages to the words of the poet:*

                       "You created my inmost being;
                       you knit me together in my mother's womb.
                       I praise you because I am fearfully
                       and wonderfully made;
                       your works are wonderful,
                       I know that full well.
                       My frame was not hidden from you
                       when I was made in the secret place.
                       When I was woven together
                       in the depths of the earth,
                       your eyes saw my unformed body.
                       All the days ordained for me
                       were written in your book
                       before one of them came to be.

He touched the woman's mind and opened her eyes to the truth behind these words; renewed courage and peace returned to her.  Everything was going to be all right.  The One who had formed her body had spoken.

Metatron looked at Tristan.  "Guard them well!"  Then he leaped through the wall and raced heavenward to report the fulfillment of his mission.

                                                           ~*~

There was a time that I envisioned myself a prophet.  I know better now, and I hold no such claim, nor desire.  It is enough to be a poet!

Dallas D'Angelo-Gary 97
* Psalm 139:13-16 (NIV)