All About Angels

 
All About Angels Poems from Island View 2009 Dedication All About Angels is dedicated to the memory of “Bockle” Dora Elizabeth Witcombe (born 01 September 1923) who left this world on October 15, 2008. We celebrate her memory, with this chapbook of poems, remembering her on her birthday, September 1, 2009. The Lost Angel One day she was there, the next day she was not. We never noticed her slipping through our fingers, like water or sand. We turned away: and when we looked up, she had gone. She was no longer there. She had joined the host of children playing on empty sands. The wind’s secrets are spread by grass tongues wagging on deserted dunes. At the first sound of our presence the children slide through clefts in the rocks and hide there in silence until we too have disappeared. Boxed Angel She lies there, in her wooden box, so silent. Like a Christmas present or a birthday gift waiting to be opened. Her lips are glazed with a streak of carmine; her cheeks are rouged. Who can afford her? What would we do with her now? We turn away. The sad man replaces the lid of her box and returns her to her refrigerated drawer. Golden Angels They stand beneath guardian trees their saffron garments glossed with gold. Hands cupped, bodies bent, they softly swell as they dip beneath the rain. They speak to me: wild prophets from an ancestral book that I believed in when I was a child, but no longer understand. I try to read the aroma of their lips, their slow, small growth of gesture. Their wings are traps tripping my tongue preventing me from flight. Christmas Angel When he opens his mouth, his tongue falls bleeding on the silver tray passed round to collect the money. The carols that once upon a time he sang choke on obscure meanings. His knees are dusty from lack of use. What wooden doll’s head rocks on his shoulders? On Christmas Eve, a painted clothes peg lies in the cradle. He swaddles it with birdsong and mimes unwritten words to a half-remembered tune. Lonely Angel We found him hanging from a tree. His swollen tongue the clapper of a blue, blue bell licking in the wind at a slice of lips. When we cut him down, he folded like a pack of cards, all value peeled away in fifty two faceless moments. I opened a door in my head to let in the sunlight. It filtered through high leafless branches, until a broken chime sounded a cracked bell in my mind. Gaudy Angel he arrived in a fanfare of color blessing the world with a rainbow oranges and lemons suspended in water green at the greengrocer’s as bright as broccoli or fresh leaves of lettuce when he left us our world turned upside down now we see only damp grey lines concrete city in a sea of rain Croaking Angels Their tunes are one note symphonies, croaks of joy moving their fellows to ecstasy, exhorting them to share the splendors of ditch life, in a springtime bonding that will loft them to the skies. There's an ancient magic in this calling: love and laughter, moonlight and water, all the joyous things one links with spring. Moonlight swings its cheerful lovelamp. New leaves and buds are also heard to sing. Baby Angel yesterday a baby angel lay dead beside the road for an instant the trees caught their breath the air stood still and a red fox tore from the trees like a runaway leaf so quick so silent a shadow across the road melting into dark woods to hide in the forest I can still see the occupants of the stricken car standing their cell phones in their hands punching urgent numbers shock had rounded their snow white lips into an O for Operator Hysterical Angel She invades my fingers, clumps my hand into a fist, and beats my breast - mea culpa - until it is blue. Her fingers comb through my hair, pulling it out until my scalp is - mea culpa – raw. Robin Redbreast puffs at a breastplate torn by his own rough nails from his feathered breast. He sings -- mea maxima culpa -- to the building storm. Angry Angel On the back porch in a halo of mud and straw, two blue eggs, as accusing as eyes. On the lawn, the angry angel stamps up and down. When she sees us, she puffs out her blood red breast and shrieks her anger in a voice that pierces like a nail. Pensive Angel “A penny for your thoughts!” The pansies turned their heads, gazing at her with great disdain. They are the lowest of the low, yet grow again, each year, from their own scattered seed, like weeds. Their faces are beautiful, bursting suddenly from winter’s white dream. They create pastel thoughts and fill the flowerbeds with secret dreams that they alone can see. Swimming Angel She swims so much better than I; one length, two, and she is powerful in the pool: stiff-necked, swan like. I recall white feathers, and elongated necks, dark feet paddling. Something was stolen! My feet moved more and more slowly; my head filled with turbulent dreams. Dark, swift waters from which I was plucked by silver tongs of fire. Avenging Angel Leaves outside my window grow rusty with rain. A sharp-shinned hawk, no bigger than the jay she stalks, drives like a whirlwind at our feeder. At dawn, this morning, a great barred owl flapped enormous wings and dropped on my neighbour's cat. Dog Fox Angel dark footsteps follow us the hard breath of an animal rasps in unseen lungs and hammers at our hearts there in the sunlight for a moment a glimpse of a tawny body what have we witnessed? our warm breath hangs a question mark on thin air Late Summer Angel “It’s good to stop, while mowing, and to rescue that one red leaf, and that one yellow leaf, and that other leaf the sun has spotted, like an old man’s hand. And it’s good to stay bent over for a while, to rest and to gaze at the October fungi, the mushrooms and the toadstools, thrusting from the earth: puff balls, dust balls, little brown umbrellas. And it’s good to see where the moles have dug new houses.” “Better yet,” says the autumn angel, “is to stand beneath the trees, drinking up the sunlight. Raise your hand and see your skin fragmented into a coat of many colours.” Light rains through the leaves, like sunshine through a stained glass window. September Angel How one leaf, turning on the tree, spells the end of summer, though warm days linger; and late last night, there was a buzz of bees around the flowers, and a halo of sound surrounded the bees’ balm. October Angel birds peck their way through egg shell skies in search of sunshine ice pellets strike dead foliage the October Angel hangs suet from the rowan a finger of wind stirs stubborn leaves whirling them round and round in a carousel of color she gathers her evening gown and walks among ruined flowers a snapdragon opens the frosted forge of its mouth and sprinkles the sky with ice-hard shards of fire Dieting Angels thin where the ice has thinned early twenty feet thinner than ten years ago diminishing flows the fat seals far from the ice holes yellow at the edges and orange their muzzles and green from the garbage dumps we saw one once in a video lift a door from its hinges enter the cabin and remove a refrigerator in its paws listening to the ice’s silence they await the slow creep of the glacier and the return of eternal snow Museum Angel Upwards we climb and upwards past rows of glitzy rooms. We stop in a tiny attic, stoop to enter. The old man lies on the bed, his face to the wall. “Where have you been?” We cannot say where we have been. As for me, I remember the wind’s hand snatching at my breath; the knife blade in my lungs; snow rattling the apples as they cling desperately to last year’s trees. Blind Angel At the seaside that day, his eyelids were frozen together. He walked in blindness, feeling his way through darkness. Thoughts rose like a sandstorm in a wedge of cloud. They sewed themselves into a striped sail flapping grey and white in the wind of their passing. Now they are heading for long days at sea over grim, grey waters. They will have seals and codfish for brothers and sisters. The lone cry of the gull will be their lullabye. Owl Angel Winter has touched us with this change of clocks. Darkness clutches an hour or so too soon. Old eight hoots watches: I call; he coughs. He will not swoop. He sits tight-perched, out of sight in his tree. The cold ground creaks its wordless whisper. Night shapes abound. A ghostly chorus chills my blood: an early winter angel calling me home. Angel Bones White thigh bone, long like a pencil; an exclamation mark, tipped with a tiny foot. Bare ribs where sun and shadow play hide and seek. The spring wind chews at the snow’s hard crusts. Clouds skip like ducks and drakes across the celestial blue of an unblinking sky. Antique Angel I found an old room filled with furniture: a writing desk, a rocking chair. Sometimes, I can sense the old folk breathing beside me. A yellow sunflower grows beneath an apple tree; a squirrel jumps from branch to branch and chatters at a jay. The antique angel’s face presses against the window. “Look at the sky,” she says “A glimpse of blue large enough to make a sailor’s trousers.” Field Mouse Angel One night a field mouse climbed onto my bed and nested in the hospital corner. I grew accustomed to its dreams: daisies were umbrellas, sunshades against the fierce sun; cow parsley leaked like a shower; the freshness of dew was balm on a summer morning; birdsong was a beloved voice calling me home. When I heard the owl hunt and hoot, I ran for cover, and built myself a tiny nest in a young girl’s bed. Angel of Light Light pours down from the sky’s inverted chalice. The glory of sunshine filtered through stained glass windows. Each droplet of colour snatched by the eye’s greedy fingers. Someone has nailed summer to its autumn cross. Fall branches rustle with familiar leaf blood. October’s jigsaw puzzle pieces lie bold beneath our feet. There are gaps in the canopy above us, but we can’t replace the pieces in the maple puzzle tree. Angel Choir listen to the choristers with their red and green voices light’s counterpoint flowering across this unexpected son et lumière we tremble with the sky fire's crackle and roar once upon another time twinned in our heavenly prisons we surely flew to those great heights and hovered in wonderment now our earthbound feet are rooted to the concrete if only our hearts could sprout new wings and soar upwards together the moon’s phosphorescent wake swims shimmering before us the lighthouse’s fingers tingle up and down our spines our bodies flow fire and blood till we crave light and yet more light Migrating Angels Three hundred thousand strong, the sound of the wind through their combs is the childhood music of angel harps, lips numb and dry from moving over paper. Grey and white notes, they rise on the air then fall in a symphony of sun, sand and surf. The incoming tide takes a swift step forward. Now they rise again riding the wind in foolish headstrong rushes. They cobble themselves into bleak beach blankets, only to unravel as they leapfrog each other jockeying for a place in the sunshine, away from the sandpaper of this searing wind. False Angel cold breath issues from the north again icicles cling to the air frost crystals red winged hawks hovering their flames of brilliance and the field mice all a-twitter death’s shadow falling fast upon them till every one crouches still and silent Crucified Angel head twisted to one side he watched us from the woods’ entrance his wings had been spread wide as if in flight feathers splayed like fingers for how many revolutions had he hovered in that space watching the sun’s slow wheel the stars walking the sky at night nailed between two adjacent branches wind and weather slowly stroking him into this stubborn lump of silence Black Angel You cannot hide when the black angel comes and knocks on your door. “Wait a minute!” you say, “While I change my clothes and comb my hair.” But he is there before you, in the clothes closet, pulling your arm. You move to the bathroom to brush your teeth. “Now!” says the angel. Your eyes mist over. You know you are there, but you can no longer see your reflection in the mirror.