Angel in Goggles

Earthly Scriptures

Angel’s earthly scriptures regard the earth from personal, secular perspectives. Like the Christian Bible, its canon admits a surprising variety of forms and lengths: There are Stories: a fateful lapse of weather-ethics; the confl ict between private and public property, the latter including humans drafted into the military. Essays: the endless multiplicity of windows (not to be found in the non-physical, mystical unity of heaven); the problematic relationship between two species (humans and dogs); proprioception (the unappreciated, vital sensation of dueling with gravity); a children’s book as an example earthly art, even to its media. A raffi sh Travelogue, intermittent, confi rms the world’s shape as a sphere. Its counterpoint, also an intermittent series, is a Treasury about the Wellses’ retirement “Estate”on a ridge of the Blue Ridge—arboretum, cloudatorium, weather- observation-post, lookout vista, and habitat for plants and creatures that include visiting grandson. A concluding Fantasy —like a two-person play except that one character can fl y with the help of protective eyewear—explores the relationship between human and the supposedly divine.