The angels

     (translated from the German by Terese Coe)

They all have tired mouths
and bright spirits without seams.
And a longing (as for sin)
runs sometimes through their dreams.

Each nearly resembles the others,
hushed among God’s flowers
like many, many stages
in His melody and power.

Only when spreading their wings
do they awake the wind,
as if God riffled the pages,
with broad sculptor’s hands,
of the dark book of beginning.