Angels Never Know

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When low black clouds in the morning open up
to a patch of robin's-egg blue and cumulus piles
pink from rays come a hundred million miles,
you know it's just an atmospheric hiccup.

Still, you can't help imagining angels there,
that hatchway in the clouds their attic door.
Pink fluff insulates our ceiling, their floor,
and the sunbeams slant like a drop-down stair.

The angels climbing up where Jacob dreamed
on a bed of rock -- so many years before he saw
again his cheated, furious brother, Esau --
were occupied in routine work it seemed.

Perhaps they carried relics to be stored --
a jar, a ram's horn, Rachel's wedding dress --
while Jacob sweated in the dark, sleepless,
and up there, supervising, was the Lord.

Then, down here, what moves Jacob to this place
in later years to beg to be forgiven?
The angels never know the real heaven
is Jacob wrapped in Esau's embrace.

Image by Susan Rouse.
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I've revised this several times since I posted it. Carried along by the feeling and the rhymes, I had alluded to events that don't occur in Genesis until after Jacob sees that ladder. I'd even included the ark of the covenant from Exodus to rhyme with "dark." I hopefully certify this poem free of anachronisms. (01/11/2023) - WSS

Dear 7th Grade

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Die! I'd spray your desktops, Virus, die!
Eyes rolling, you'd rip a paper towel to dry.

In that year of COVID protocols
distancing deadened our normally boisterous halls.

We knew each other only from the laptop
or, in person, only from the mask up.

M., under a cloud of curls would rise
the gleam of insight dawning in your eyes.

K., straightening up, you'd squint at me
to give some word of mine your scrutiny.

D., on screen, you showed what phrases are for:
hitting the wall and writhing on the floor.

S., your glance outside meant, time to run.
Returned, you'd crouch and write 'til class was done.

N., our on-screen anchor, you'd listen and wait
until discussion flagged, then commentate.

H., brows raised in incredulity,
shamed other readers into empathy.

Lost at the start, I found the grace I'd need
in your determination that we would succeed.

Image by Susan Rouse.
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When the pandemic hit, I felt in my fortieth year of teaching the same dread and inadequacy of my horrific first. All the tricks I'd learned to engage students in a classroom were suddenly obsolete, even dangerous.

One assignment carried over from the before-times: to write someone or something a poem of gratitude in the manner of Kobe Bryant's "Dear Basketball." This is my entry in that category. NOTE: The letters, not initials, sometimes stand for composites of students who filled similar roles in different class sections. - WSS

Wingtips

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my grandmother called them, shoes bestowed
on me with a wave of her white-gloved hand
and the magic words, "He'll wear them. Charge it."

Their toecap shields riveted
with perforations at the seams
and ornamental curlicues

(so upper class), and arched like wings
on Batman's chest, or Dracula's cape,
my wingtips, tapping, sounded grown up.

Matching my steps to her pink high heels,
I shared in her regal dignity.
As we left, the sales clerks bowed.

At the airport, she set me free
to search for comics. My wingtip aura
parted tourists. I owned the terminal.

Back home, while other boys played sports,
I drew up my invisible cape
and poof! on bat wings, flew away.

I got their message: wingtips were prissy.
My shoes next time were plain. No matter.
Her love was my shield ever after.

Image by Susan Rouse.
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I've blogged about my grandmother. See Thelma Craig Maier Remembered for All Saints (11/2021). - WSS