When Angels Fly

We watch the children grow
until our eyes water and ache and
we can't tell if it's from strain or
the sadness of time lost.

We watch until they slip away like
leaves down a soft-flowing stream and
we wonder if the river is swollen from
the rain or our salty tears.

We watch our children drift away
around a bend then beyond our reach.
We hold our breath as they carry our hopes
in trembling hands and fragile limbs.

We watch until our loins ache to
carry on and begin all over again and
we remember the time of
radiance and the smallest joys.

We watch our children fly on gossamer and precarious
wings of our own fashioning and
we can't tell if we need them... we don't need them...
they need us... they don't need us.

We long for that time of angels when we were sure that
angels were real, before we were jaded and
we pray to those angels now to
hold our children up in their flight

and return them to us...
in their own sweet time.

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