By Pavel Chichikov
All messengers are angels, and the lesser ones are
Thermal-riding hawks, foreboding crows and ravens
Agile swifts, athletic gulls and plunging pelicans
Cranes that lumber and the geese like cannon-shot
From silent catapults, ducks on analeptic wings
And furtive, dapple-shadowed wrens and finches
But greater ones ascending from the mind
Do not appear in motion but impel our motion –
Migrate nowhere, feed nor build a nest
Nor sing to hold supremacy of trees –
They rise through us into our eyes
And fill the world with sovereign surprise
And then with light uncommon they ascend
In ways no bird or human comprehends
(Click here to follow Pavel's ongoing epic poem “The Shoulder of the Sun.” You may visit Pavel's website at http://www.greyowlpress.com.)