Poetry Friday: Angels

In this post I shared two poems that asked angels questions. I said I was going to write my own poem asking angels questions, and I did. Here it is:


Questions for the Angel

Excuse me?
Guardian Angel?
I have some questions.

You know how people say
"Your guardian angel's been busy"
When you escape an earthquake
Or when lightning barely misses you?
Well, what about all those other people?
The ones who didn't escape,
The ones whom lightning struck?
Where were their angels?
On coffee break?
Do angels drink coffee?

And why, Mr. Guardian Angel,
Why aren't you enough for me?
Why do I need powerless human beings
When I have your muscly guardianship?
Why am I not satisfied by your cool angelic touch
Or the brush of your wings?

Speaking of wings, why can't I fly?
Sometimes, Angel, it would come in very handy;
Maybe you'd be less busy then,
Because it would be easier for me to dodge.
And maybe I could stumble less, be more graceful,
More like you, in fact, though only an earthly angel.

Do you feel anything, Angel?
You look impassive in the paintings,
Alabaster smooth and white,
Calm, unruffled, free of the storms
That shake me.
Is it that you know how things really are?
And if so,
Would you tell me, please?

You don't talk very much, do you, Angel?

Ruth, from thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com


I asked if anybody else had an angel poem to share, and Janet sent these.


Denise Levertov's poem "St. Peter and the Angel" starts like this:

Delivered out of raw continual pain,
smell of darkness, groans of those others
to whom he was chained--

unchained, and led
past the sleepers,
door after door silently opening--
out!
And along a long street's
majestic emptiness under the moon:

one hand on the angel's shoulder, one
feeling the air before him,
eyes open but fixed . . .

You can read the rest here.

And here's Steven Curtis Chapman's reminder that even though there may be lots of questions we want to ask angels, there are some things humans know that angels wish they did:

Here's today's Poetry Friday roundup.