POEM SHARE: The Angel's Retirement Speech

The Angel's Retirement Speech

My advice to those of you
just starting out: don't expect too much,
or to make a big splash.
They're all so jaded now, what with all
this technology. Not like the old days,
when all you had to do
was throw your voice on the wind,
cry tears through a statue, maybe just appear
in times of great stress, looking your most
diaphanous
     No, now they've got
their own miracles, like cell phones
and videos - who needs a visitation
when they've got their own apparitions
appearing and disappearing, all night
on Extended Basic Cable?
With advances like that,
a voice from heaven is not all that impressive,
nor the sight of winged creatures hovering
in a golden shaft of light.

I guess I would say
just stick to the basics, the stuff
that always works. Like birthing babies,
and healing the folks the doctors thought hopeless.
Maybe pull the stalled car off the train tracks
at the very last second. When things look grim
give 'em the old "Jesus' face in a potato chip," or
maybe a squirrel's nest that becomes, at dusk,
the spitting image of St. Francis in profile.
It might sometimes seem
like a thankless job but when you
do it right, just watch them pack up
for a road trip pilgrimage
with their picnic baskets and instamatics.
Watch their eyes widened in innocence again,
to see the Mary Magdalene in a cloud formation,
or the Enquirer's MOSES ZUCCHINI.

Annie Farnsworth