Who was this youth? What was this moment?

Copyright 2007, Jerry W. Engler



Through the stone arch the sun
was a late day orange-yellow blaze
that lowered my eyes
on the Union park bench
where I numbly sat with
the charts of orderly logarithms,
the bases of statistical occurences.
What was the chance of this?
When I looked up a young person stood,
perhaps it was the youth of the ages,
a person of perfect visage,
beauty and power,
in front of the arch
with golden red hair,
white light of such luminescense,
shining round yet
emanating from him,
without obscuring my sight,
unwavering with such intensity
that it blocked out
the view of the sun.
The eyes, what color,
I still don't know.
What mattered was the gaze
into the very center of my being
that knew me and loved me
so unquestioningly that I knew,
I must go to this person.
The attraction was enormous,
overwhelming in its longing,
this youth with such pure
shining perfection of face and limb
seemed imbued with the wisdom of all
yet I knew he was solely there for me,
I only know I knew.
I reached down for my book,
my face away for a pause,
and when I turned the person was gone.
I searched, I went up and down,
I took every possible route,
to look for the youth of golden-red hair,
but nobody was to be seen.
For only a moment, it had seemed,
a blessing was bestowed,
a celestial moment unasked for.
Was it a tiding
of what was to come?
Hours later that night I met my wife
for the first time
at a dance in Union Hall,
an angel had paused to touch my mind
for what was coming
the one I've loved most of all.