Archangels Just Before the Rain
by Diane Wald
At six a.m. I go out to check the hellebores, and luckily, there are enough to compose a small bouquet for Janice, a few of the pink and green and one of the precious white. Yesterday we had a scare: a fisher cat went after a young spring rabbit in the side yard, but luckily got scared off by a crow who was on the job. I tried to follow the big brown fisher down into the woods, but it disappeared, and I was sort of glad, not really wanting disturb it, and wandered back up to the house slowly, wondering if the groundcover seeds I’d scattered near the brook last year would even come up. They might have been washed away, or maybe it’s still too early. The air smells like apples, although it’s way too early for apples now. Thank goodness for that crow, I wish it could follow me around and warn me of all the dangers this wild life offers. For that, I guess, some people have angels. Archangels, I’ve heard, have auras and wings in a variety of colors—emerald green, ice-white, indigo, violet—and all one has to do to release their powers is ask. Dear Raphael, Dear Hameid, Dear Uriel, Dear Zadkiel, please bring me health and wealth and oh never mind. I’m not sure I want to go back again to the days of begging some unseen entity for anything. Everything in this body— well, almost everything—has lasted this long. If our cells really change every seven years, as the scientists say, I’ll need a new name—have needed one for quite a long time. And you, who are you now, now that you’ve disappeared, having read all the books with buttery thumbs? I don’t know you now, perhaps never did. I stood by you, and you stood by me while most of our cells were changing. Those bodies moved on, we assumed new names, over and over, and now and then we meet somewhere we may never have been before–under other names, with other quite colorful meanings.
Diane Wald is a poet and novelist who has published five chapbooks, four full-length poetry collections, two novels, and hundreds of poems in literary magazines. Her most recent books are The Warhol Pillows (poetry), Gillyflower (novel), and My Famous Brain (novel). Her next novel, The Bayrose Files, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing. Learn more at www.dianewald.org