Muse

--Linda Pastan

(after reading Rilke)

No angel speaks to me.

And though the wind

plucks the dry leaves

as if they were so many notes

of music, I can hear no words.

Still, I listen. I search

the feathery shapes of clouds

hoping to find the curve of a wing.

And sometimes, when the static

of the world clears just for a moment

a small voice comes through,

chastening. Music

is its own language, it says.

Along the indifferent corridors

of space, angels could be hiding.