This morning in our town I watched
an angel and a woman walking on Maple Street.
Unaccustomed to the fall of leaves
and to the laws of gravity the
angel stumbled and fell.
The woman watched in silence as it struggled to its feet.
A gray wind from our next storm scoured
a row of trees above us and filled
the air with a cloud of leaves, like a
flock of red and yellow butterflies.
Astonished with wonder, the angel watched
the butterflies (I mean the leaves)
in wide-eyed amazement, mouth open,
as if it had just beheld the Easter Bunny.
Then it fell over backwards on its rump.
The woman smiled, murmured something, watched
the angel gain its feet and wobble toward
a white-haired man – a fellow walker,
fellow-stranger –
under the bare branches.
Without a backward glance at the
woman, the celestial creature, with
incandescent gaze and utter trust, offered
a gift in its tiny hand and
placed it carefully in his.
“Good girl, Iris,” said the woman.
Not far away, only a few blocks
away, the dictator’s masked
gunmen prowl the streets.
They “deport” men and women,
children too, into unmarked
cars and “military vehicles.”
The stranger walks away in the
direction of the troops. The angel’s gift
floats above his hand, as precious
as all these mornings in Autumn.