Poor Angels
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Born in Chicago, Edward Hirsch spent many years at the University of Houston teaching in the Graduate Creative Writing Program. He is currently . . . MORE »
Born in Chicago, Edward Hirsch spent many years at the University of Houston teaching in the Graduate Creative Writing Program. He is currently . . . MORE »
By Edward Hirsch
At this hour the soul floats weightlessly
through the city streets, speechless and invisible,
astonished by the smoky blend of grays and golds
seeping out of the air, the dark half-tones
of dusk suddenly filling the urban sky
while the body sits listlessly by the window
sullen and heavy, too exhausted to move,
too weary to stand up or to lie down.
At this hour the soul is like a yellow wing
slipping through the treetops, a little ecstatic
cloud hovering over the sidewalks, calling out
to the approaching night, “Amaze me, amaze me,”
while the body sits glumly by the window
listening to the clear summons of the dead
transparent as glass, clairvoyant as crystal.
Some nights it is almost ready to join them.
Oh, this is a strange, unlikely tethering,
a furious grafting of the quick and the slow:
when the soul flies up, the body sinks down
and all night—locked in the same cramped room—
they go on quarreling, stubbornly threatening
to leave each other, wordlessly filling the air
with the sound of a low internal burning.
How long can this bewildering marriage last?
At midnight the soul dreams of a small fire
of stars flaming on the other side of the sky,
but the body stares into an empty night sheen,
a hollow-eyed darkness. Poor luckless angels,
feverish old loves: don’t separate yet.
Let what rises live with what descends.
Edward Hirsch, “Poor Angels” from Wild Gratitude. Copyright © 2003 by Edward Hirsch. Reprinted with the permission of the author.