To the angel without wings:
‘Greetings; don’t let me keep you.’
To the winged one, making as if
to be up and gone: ‘Stay awhile.’
To the dark angel, pedlar
of reflections: ‘I am not at home.’
To the one sworn eternally
to silence: ‘Eavesdrop my heart.’
To truth’s angel: ‘In his ear about me
nothing but the white lie.’
by R. S. Thomas
from Mass for Hard Times (1992)