Three weeks

Today it’s been three weeks since my close encounter with a Jeep.  You would think it gives me a lot of time for poetry, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate on anything serious.  I did come across this poem, though, which I am passing along:

The Blessed Angels

How much like
angels are these tall
gladiolas in a vase on my coffee
table, as if in a bunch
whispering. How slender
and artless, how scandalously
alive, each with its own
humors and pulse. Each weight-
bearing stem is the stem
of a thought through which
aspires the blood-metal of stars. Each heart
is a gift for the king. When
I was a child, my mother and aunts
would sit in the kitchen
gossiping. One would tip
her head toward me, “Little Ears,”
she’d warn, and the whole room
went silent. Now, before sunrise,
what secrets I am told!—being
quieter than blossoms and near invisible.

Toi Derricotte

 

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