Subject: Angels

From: [email-masked]
Date: 7 Dec 1994 03:12:21 GMT

The Angels Visit Mr. Bear Unawares
 
another solstice eve, and he goes the rounds
of glass and cup, bowl and spoon;
these objects he continually seeks
to fill, and having filled, will empty,
sitting in oblivion before the household god
of commerce, which angrily shakes him and shouts:
Buy more! Buy more now! But he no longer hears.
If it were 
less wintry, would he not, even this hour,
step outside, and with his peripheral vision at least
make out the starry Pleiades, and sing to them
his coda to the song they yet make
in his dimming and watery eye? O, aye;
But he sleeps, fitfully, fitfully. 
Let us withdraw now,
and not dream with him of loosening teeth and lost hair;
we will drift over the fields of his longing,
blessing his grain and his fruit trees,
and all the small beasts in his pasture.
 
Let him live longer, to tend these as signs of his living,
and to tend to his need to be giving.
When he then comes to us, he will be well,
and the names he gives to us will be our names.

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Richard Bear                                         [email-masked]
University of Oregon    Stony Run Farm                  all disclaimers apply
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