Birds And Angels (Poetry)

When I walk through the evening woods
I am aware
of all the birds I cannot see
I know they’re there
behind the rood screen greenery
their angel faces sharp with purity
and voices streaming from each listening tree
whose leaves part soft to let those notes swim free
into the spellbound air
then on and on across the fields beyond
to touch the waiting hills with song
before the dusk comes down

and lights shine out from windows
of the far-off town
while beneath the eaves plump rock doves quietly coo —
small flocks of cherubs in the guise of roosting birds
watch over lonely streets
the dark night through.

The loud flamboyant cockerel on the farm
can be heard a country mile away.
He is the trumpeter who heralds in each dawn
and wakes all sleepers — rouses those who lay
within the sound
as though it’s Judgement Day
and our tired souls must line the nearest highway
repeating prayers to greet the morning sun
while like common gulls
the seraphim climb thermals
skimming the lip of Time’s vast swelling ocean
to turn its early rising tide
on everyone.