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Angel Song

nong-vang-426975-unsplash

 

Night after night, I wax and wane, pour

all that I love into bowls silver-lighted along your

windowsill. I watch you bend

over, reach, touch each.

A jeweller intent—setting wheels

into gears with rubies.


 

Music for the eye to remember in the morning when you rise

open the door to the garden and say,

The leaves have gone now.

Only the Small-leafed Southern Maples

hold the last red.


 

I know everything we touch burns away. Yet

we give ourselves again and again.


 

Is it enough that in the end our two shadows

both silvered in the light we share

stand thus on the red edge of the world?

 

 

John McDowell is a poet, artist, and professor, and the dean of arts at Burman University. His poetry and photography have been featured on past Spectrum covers, and his essays have appeared in the journal. This poem was featured in the Winter 2013 edition of Spectrum (volume 41, issue 1).

 

Image: Unsplash / Nong Vang

 

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