The Hastily Assembled Angel Meets the God of Human Freedom

Shane McCrae

The hastily assembled angel followed

The humans to their freedom   Just he wondered like

The eyes of the angels       when they fol-

lowed me       after the angels shoved

 

Me out of Heaven the       angel followed them until

They came upon a desert-colored city

Surrounded by a wall of crumbling bricks

Before which guards armed not with spears but sticks

  

Stood       and the humans in their freedom raised

Their fingers to their mouths       to say We have

No food       and the guards waved their empty hands

To say There is no food in the city and

 

The humans in their freedom killed them both

And pounded with their bloody fists       on the splintering gates

Which shook but didn’t break       the angel watched       as

The humans in their freedom made a giant calf with

 

A golden body       and an iron head

And slammed the calf into the gates

Which shook and broke apart       the angel saw      the

Humans in their       freedom became as hungry then

 

As any who had ever lived

Hungrier than the humans in the city

Who had fed       on living in a city

And the angel flew       into the burning city

 

And kneeled before the calf       as he had seen

So many humans kneel before the gods they

Had made       What god is this he wondered

I kneel before       knowing it is no god

Shane McCrae is the author, most recently, of the poetry collection The Many Hundreds of the Scent. His memoir, Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, was published in 2023. He lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.
Originally published:
April 1, 2020

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