Seven Pigeons and the White Angel

For two hours I hiked along beaches
of the Snoqualmie, fog gray fingers
played in red and gold leaves,
dark-faced shadows shrank behind
the stones, and the sun shot pins through
purple green water on bushes.
The beach was deserted.

The great salmon burrowed their heads
as far upstream as they could.
Their tired backs looking frost-bit,
spotted tails churned troughs of
black silver. I stood spellbound.
Listened to water singing so low
I could almost not hear it at all,
but there was a hunger to the notes.

Above my head a flock of pigeons circled,
one white angel in their midst. I found out later
they pulled a young man from the river
drenched and unbreathing the evening before.
They worked on him a long time, they said,
but the spirit just kind of leaked right out of him.
I think it rose up into the fog coming that night
like a blanket, like an unexpected answer
to a life unevenly driven,

I think it turned white like the salmon,
I think its wings opened--
right there in the midst of a flock
of common pigeons,

you should have seen it,
circling a few times

just before leaving.


***


for Mac

October 13, 2009