You Are Safe, Little Ones
I see a footbridge high above a gorge. One bannister is gone; the other lies on narrow rotting boards. Rough waters surge beneath this passageway that creaks and sighs in answer to footfalls of children who, while clinging to each other, move ahead with wary steps toward home and suppertime and hope they'll soon be safely tucked in bed. These innocents are not alone. Unknown to them, an angel stands close by to keep them safe from peril that could plunge them to the depths. Tonight no one will grieve and weep. Janice Canerdy Janice Canerdy is a retired high-school English teacher from Potts Camp, Mississippi. Her poems have appeared in various magazines, journals, and anthologies. Her first book, Expressions of Faith (Christian Faith Publishing, 2016), may be purchased online through Amazon and Barnes and Noble. *Editor's note: This famous painting of children crossing a bridge, protected by a guardian angel, is familiar to countless people whose childhood bedrooms included a print of the work, like a night light, or whose picture Bibles and Sunday Schools featured the art. There is much confusion over the artist, often listed as Lindberg Heilige Schutzengel, or sometimes as "Heilige Schutzengel by Lindberg." Heilige Schutzengel means Holy Guardian Angel in German, and is a reference to the content of the painting, but Linberg was one of the poster printers for this work, not the artist's name. H. Zabateri was an Austrian academic painter of mythological and religious scenes; however, he also did not exist and was a pseudonym for Hans Zatzka. In turn, Zatzka also used Pierre de Ronsard, Joseph Bernard, and Bernard Zatzka, adding to the tangle. The purpose behind the artist's multiple identities was probably, in part, eccentricity, but also pragmatic: he was extremely prolific, and contracts limited how many works he could legally sell, so one way to circumvent that was to paint under different names.
5 Comments
Isabel Maria Cabello Sibaja
12/13/2019 08:08:42 am
Buenos días.
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Lois
10/5/2021 04:41:36 pm
This picture was a comfort to me when I visited my paternal grandparents on weekends in Long Beach CA back in the late 1940s. My dad was an alcoholic so life was often insecure and sometimes scary. It still warms my heart to this day. I love the poem!
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George M Cagle
4/20/2022 04:17:21 pm
Very nice!
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Jennifer
7/7/2023 06:25:36 pm
I thought is name was Bernhard Plockhorst? I saw that on another website.
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Topher
1/24/2024 01:31:17 pm
Plockhorst did paint a similar image, but his depicted a guardian angel minding two children who were picking flowers next to a steep rocky slope. Not very dissimilar to this one, which, as you can tell by the author's notes, has had its lineage challenged nearly the entirety of its existence.
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February 2025
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