Look, above the creek, hummingbirds in the trumpet vine. <br />Not too close, wait. See the green blurs <br />stitching the leaves? <br />Here at the edge of the millennium <br />I don't imagine <br />you'd call them anything as archaic as angels. <br />But aren't they agents of a sort, and secret, <br />dissolving and solidifying, <br />spying from their constantly shifting perches of air, <br />always nervous <br />of us, risking only a stab <br />in a bell of petals? <br />Don't look so stunned, lay your pack <br />in the needles and catch a breath. I know, <br />you thought you knew me, <br />and now to hear me talk this way <br />I'm glad I've stopped pretending <br />to love people <br />and the cities where people can't love themselves. <br />This is what the quiet accomplishes, <br />and the water trusting <br />the shadows to eventually peel back to the trees. <br />Small wonder the angels are said to despise us. <br />Still, without them <br />how do we account for our meanness? <br />Look at that, what else can promenade <br />in the air? And how easily <br />they're alarmed, <br />revving off into the mist.<br /><br />David Bottoms<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-walk-to-carter-s-lake-2/
