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The Hastily Assembled Angel Falls at the Beginning of the World
by Shane McCrae

Except most things weren’t clouds 		everything there

Was clouds 	the hastily assembled angel

Before he knew the word 	clouds was the last word

He heard the other angels shouting as

They shoved him 	though he after he had fallen

Too far to hear them he 	saw their mouths mak-

ing shapes that were not clouds 	and when he saw that

Thought That’s 	something that isn’t clouds that	 shouting

After I’ve fallen too far to hear them don’t

They know		 I’ve fallen too far to hear them now

Or are we not together now before

He knew the word	 in those few minutes the oth-

er angels were assembling him	 he named

The things he saw with words that seemed to fit them

Nothing was heavenly a few things were

Ocean and hole and monkeyapple he

Before the other angels shoved him 	had

Started combining words	 but nobody

Would name the things he saw the way he named them

And to the other angels all his naming

Was noise they shouted 	as they shoved him It’s

All clouds	 what difference could it make 	to the angel

Built to monitor the Earth 	from the surface

Of the Earth	 what was or wasn’t true in Heaven

They shoved him then       they stared and then they shouted

After the disappearing figure all

The things they suddenly remembered 	    they had

Forgotten to tell him 	 as they were hammer-

ing him together as they hammered him

Together and behind them	  but above

Behind	 a pinkish light that was or was-

n’t God pulsed 	 like the heart of one of the creatures

God hadn’t yet created though the angels

Had seen the creatures coming in the waves

Then covering the Earth	 the angels had

Seen them 		and didn’t want to be assigned

To live with them		 and so had voted to

Build their own angel but they didn’t ask

Permission first instead they built him quick-

ly	 and as Gabriel asked God	 if this

New angel could be sent instead to Earth

Fresh       eyes for a fresh world the other angels

Shoved him the hastily assembled angel

From the cloud and Heaven	     he	      the hastily

Assembled angel could see	    farther than

The other angels though he couldn’t under-

stand what he saw as well	  as the other angels

Might have       and as he fell he saw their mouths mak-

ing shapes he saw the light behind them       pulsing

And as he fell he watched the clouds becoming

Abstract 	 as any other angel would

From Heaven watch a species go extinct

Even as dry land emerged from the waves below him

"The Hastily Assembled Angel Falls at the Beginning of the World" by Shane McCrae. Used by permission of the poet.