What’s An Angel Like?
my grandson asks me.
He’s heard about the wings
so I try to explain their flight.
I think of swallows, how just a few
can cut the sky to pieces with sharp wings.
But then I remember the one
that struck the glass, then fell
dead on the roof outside our window,
25 stories above the river, and stuck
at the edge where we couldn’t reach it
for most of last year — one wing
fluttering—like it could take off
any minute, or at least blow away.
So instead, I show him a bird guide photo
of a Snowy Egret. I tell him I saw one
rise up from an inlet in the saltmarsh,
then glide toward me on wings so white
they made me think of the pure
radiant garments of the saved
he’s heard about in Sunday School.
In fact, it made me think of Willie’s
“Angel Flying to Close to the Ground,”
and that sad song stuck
in my head for days, along with Kitty’s
honky-tonk angels and other sacred hymns
that, when the time comes,
won’t be so easy to explain.