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"The Guardian Angel"
Afloat between lives and stale truths,
he realizes
he’s never truly protected one soul,
they all die anyway, and what good
is solace,
solace is cheap. The signs are clear:
the drooping wings, the shameless thinking
about utility
and self. It’s time to stop.
The guardian angel lives for a month
with other angels,
sings the angelic songs, is reminded
that he doesn’t have a human choice.
The angel of love
lies down with him, and loving
restores him to his pure heart.
Yet how hard it is
to descend into sadness once more.
When the poor are evicted, he stands
between them
and the bank, but the bank sees nothing
in its way. When the meek are overpowered
he’s there, the thin air
through which they fall. Without effect
he keeps getting in the way of insults.
He keeps wrapping
his wings around those in the cold.
Even his lamentations are unheard,
though now
in for the long haul, trying to live
beyond despair, he believes, he needs
to believe
everything he does takes root, hums
beneath the surface of the world.
-- Stephen Dunn
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