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Order
Just as I’m thinking it’s my father’s birthday
a snowy egret swoops the calm green water, lights
in an alder across the creek, folding broad wings
into the sleek pose it assumes fishing the shallows.
Angel white. Is it a sign, a visitation?
Butterflies of any hue can signal the beloved dead
are nearby. Hummingbirds bring knowledge
from other worlds. The orange dragonfly
dipping its tail on the water may also
be a messenger, its burring wings a prayer
wheel sending up pleas like bubbles to burst
before the gaze of a distant god. The delicate
damselflies cling to shore reeds, sapphire
weft in the green warp of riparian tapestry.
Maybe all winged beings belong to the order of angels:
diaphanous threads of their flight
rise through air meaning to mend us
fractured humans to the divine.
The swan. The ibis. Ravens. Doves.
Hawks. Honeybees. Bottle flies. Bats. Moths.
Midges. Mosquitos. Their whirring,
humming, darting, swishing, floating, soaring
all measures in an ancient score, a hymn
to lift the earthbound into a higher realm.
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