Paul Matthews
Michaelmas
What right do I have to speak about angels?
unless to encounter one in the act of speaking.
It is my birthday.
Thundering.
I am 31.
The dragon howls at the gate.
What happens on your birthday
foreshadows the whole year.
The ancient battle is enacted here in my own yard
as the lightning flashes.
And now the rain, that ruster of bicycles,
rides against the window.
We are seeds.
We are nothing.
Huddled in the dark armchair.
It is a glimpse of that impossible Michaelmas where
leaves are more than a falling one by one away.
It is a storm of angels.
To wrestle with.
As I do now in trying to speak about them.
Page(s) 186-7
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