On Cherubim and a Flaming Sword by J. Kirk Richards

Like moths summoned by the gravity of light, 
figures lean beneath sinuous white robes, their 
point of communion is clear: hands in line with 
the flame—its blade toward the earth’s unhealed 
wound, toward the fissure through Eve’s flesh—
they warm themselves before the Tree, transients 
clinging to the stories God told them before 
giving them charge of the far end of Paradise.  

Seared to seer stones and stillness by the flame’s 
quartered eye, wings tuned to Eurus sighing matins, 
hair flaming out like a moth’s mad fireside benediction, 
they watch for wanderers to part the distant trees 
as the earth rolls toward the sun like a lover turning 
to spoon with the promise of verdure and apocalypse.