After Rilke
Every angel is falling—not like a skydiver rushing toward reunion but like a fish leaping above the calm surface of a lake, entering a new universe of knives & eyelids. Imagine being born at the height of your powers.
One rainfall & your chalk outline disappears from the curb. One hurricane and half the population of your migratory species vanishes over the Atlantic.
I don’t believe in angels, but I believe in their falling, their helplessness against evil. Nobody is watching over us except for the blessed satellites, most of which are in stable orbits.
We point our dishes at the farthest stars, searching for any crumb of meaning. Who but the most downwardly mobile, undocumented aliens would turn unjaded ears toward the earth?
The first line is of course a riff on the opening of Rilke’s second Duino Elegy, “Every angel is terrifying.”