Classic Poem

The awesomest flock of wild geese I ever saw
passed over just after sundown.
Three hundred or more, their arrows
and echelons, their mile-wide
order-of-advance wavering
as though under fire, their bagpipes —
chanters and drones — blowing,

their battle dress flashing —
each grey cuirass — where at three-thousand
feet they still had bright daylight
and caught it — a multiple lens
shuttered by wingbeats, twinkling
like hundreds of running-lights.

They passed over so far up,
so musical, indistinct, shimmering,
we'd have known — once — we stood under
an exaltation of angels.
(There was even one black one — a satan? — haunting
that shining host, alone not shining,
absorbing the light ...) As it was,
our neighbor, Bernie, said only,
" Those fuckers are really up there! " —

Which is O.K. He'd have said that for angels.