Angels Unawares

If all the most vibrant feathers soared together—
Bluebirds, Goldfinches, Cardinals,
additional primary colors—we’d get a rainbow.

I had a child tell me once, the sweetest songbirds
are angels in disguise.

I decided she must be one herself, to think that.

And I wondered if the seraphim
in Isaiah’s Temple might have been Goldfinches;
maybe two Bluebirds in the empty tomb;

a Cardinal flock, the twelve flames of Pentecost.

Now, whenever I hear a White-Throated Sparrow
sing on the summit ledges,

I reply, “Let it be to me according to your song.”

Interventionist

Wells went dry, grass crisped.
“Chance of showers” was all that meteorology
could offer us.

Upstairs under the roof at night,
windows wide to welcome the least rumor of rain,

we listened, sleepless—hopeful, but in vain.

It took intervention,
and the interventionist needed to act from a tree
at the edge of encircling woods,

wearing ceremonious barred apparel for the task.
He chanted his mantra,
“Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?”

And at that very moment, the rain began to fall.

Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire.  Recent work appears in Red Eft Review, Wilderness House, Bookends Review, and The Windhover. His latest poetry book, Magnificat, is available from Encircle Publications.  He is a trail maintainer for the Lakes Region Conservation Trust.