Of Birds in Flight and Angel Music

 I

When I first felt that delicate brush

that soft touch

of something more, something other

a wider awareness.

Was it some where beyond myself.

Hearing a voice

but there was no voice

no words

no thoughts

only a gentle touch.

I felt it come toward me above the left side

of my head, something from above.

I was in the little church in Bowness

not far from our house.

In Sunday School. Sitting at a table,

a teacher and four other children

some crayons, broken all of them

some pieces short, some long

and paper.

It was ok that the crayons were broken.

I didn’t know how to use them,

or I didn’t care. They scraped across the

paper and left no mark. Too many

hands had clutched them before perhaps.

I don’t know.

But I’ve always remembered that little touch

from a hand that wasn’t there, it moved

as soft as a glance

from eyes not mine.

                        II

After my mother died

the touch came again.

Angels? Her spirit?

I don’t know.

I did not need to name what I felt.

The day after her funeral

when I woke up in the morning.

I heard the sound of music

felt a soft warmth around me.

The music came each morning

all the years I was growing up.

In my mind.

Inside that quiet morning place.

It stayed with me until I left the room.

I learned to listen for it

and there it was

in that moment

Not always the same.

Sometimes one kind of music

sometimes another.

Sometimes a tune I already knew.

Sometimes a tune from another place.

It’s kind of hard to remember now

to put it into words

and yet the memory is perfectly clear.

It was always there.

Until I woke up one day and it was gone.

Vanished. I felt bereft, used to companionship.

                        III

It’s come back

each morning, once again.

Like writing a poem

some of it’s already inside.

Some of it’s not.

Sometimes it comes from a plane

that is like memory but is not quite memory.

Like the day

I drove across the bridge and

down along the river

just to see the water shining.

I didn’t need to drive down that road

for any other reason

but I wanted to remember the look

of bright sun running with water,

edged with little rivulets and glister.

I saw birds flying. Crows playing with the wind.

As I drove I thought about

how when birds fly

their wings leave a trace in the sky.

In church that morning so many years ago

did the other children at the table beside me

feel that touch? Were any of them looking

up trying to catch their eyes on that

flow, that trace of movement?

                        IV

A wing in flight

a touch, a glance

this is the lingering presence

of those angels,

or of birds, their feathers ruffling the wind,

trackless, they lift themselves along

toward their hidden

purpose.

Birds’ wings

leave presence

in the sky

as they float over the river ice

following the meltwater.

As they flow,

words, as birds,

take free flight

Beat upward and rise toward light falling on water

lifted up by the merest glance

from eyes not mine

gliding along the shimmers,

glimmers reflected.

                        V

See, in-take the layers of light as the birds do.

We don’t often see them, the colors hidden

The birds know how to look.

                        VI

Sometimes the inner morning sounds I hear

are quite symphonic

complex and full

with melodies that rise and fall.

Swell and fade.

Crow hears music, perhaps the same.

She comes.

Beats toward me, her wings rise and fall.

Comes to earth beside me.

Catches me to her heart.

Carries me to my work.

Today we, together, Crow and I

and the angels never stop singing.

We bend, we lift what must become,

what is waiting to be born and take wing

out of solid rock. Out of the slow moving of mind.

With slow waiting comes something more.

With long fastened-tight-open

hands and eyes that resist the fading

of those traces of flight.

Call it focus

What my grandmother called

Endurance. Strong

patience

Angel turns the rock into water.

Wind lifts, and scatters that water

as rain over earth

and from there comes the growth.

The pine tree, blasted on the mountain top

black with wind, black from lonely, frosted nights

that never seem to end.

Or perhaps a fall of nasturtium blossoms

scarlet and golden

across the garden fence

a jar of tea made from mint and

chamomile and bit of pineapple sage.

A spoonful of parsley

a fingerful of thyme.

Always the parsley. Always the thyme.

Always the heart of nasturtiums, open

always the pines, bending with the wind.