At this hour the soul floats weightlessly <br />through the city streets, speechless and invisible, <br />astonished by the smoky blend of grays and golds <br />seeping out of the air, the dark half-tones <br /> <br />of dusk suddenly filling the urban sky <br />while the body sits listlessly by the window <br />sullen and heavy, too exhausted to move, <br />too weary to stand up or to lie down. <br /> <br />At this hour the soul is like a yellow wing <br />slipping through the treetops, a little ecstatic <br />cloud hovering over the sidewalks, calling out <br />to the approaching night, “Amaze me, amaze me,” <br /> <br />while the body sits glumly by the window <br />listening to the clear summons of the dead <br />transparent as glass, clairvoyant as crystal. <br />Some nights it is almost ready to join them. <br /> <br />Oh, this is a strange, unlikely tethering, <br />a furious grafting of the quick and the slow: <br />when the soul flies up, the body sinks down <br />and all night—locked in the same cramped room— <br /> <br />they go on quarreling, stubbornly threatening <br />to leave each other, wordlessly filling the air <br />with the sound of a low internal burning. <br />How long can this bewildering marriage last? <br /> <br />At midnight the soul dreams of a small fire <br />of stars flaming on the other side of the sky, <br />but the body stares into an empty night sheen, <br />a hollow-eyed darkness. Poor luckless angels, <br /> <br />feverish old loves: don’t separate yet. <br />Let what rises live with what descends.<br /><br />Edward Hirsch<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/poor-angels/
