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Blue Angels These are thy glorious works, parent of good. —John Milton, Paradise Lost Book Five, line 153 Deep in summer and hot the roar that traces the river road. Blue Angels have come from the Air Fair flying in delta formation. My sons––not quite two, not quite four–– pick up sticks and waggle them at the jets, testing the air with broken branches. Under a limitless sky, Blue Angels arc across the garden. The Four of Diamonds hector the Opposite Solo as they roll to Section High Alpha while somewhere north, the Lead Solo, unseen by us now, swoops low across a runway doing the famous sneak pass. The garden is filled with blue butterflies, their wings dotted black and gold–– butterflies that eat only the sweetness of lupine. Nothing will grow where lupine grows. After the Fall, after the loss of Paradise, when God stopped speaking, the angels sang Hallelujah, in voices as loud as the sea. Just are thy ways, they sang, righteous are thy decrees on all thy works; who can extenuate thee? 42 And God gave his angels many tasks to afflict the world, and thus began outrage from lifeless things. I know Satan has the better part in Milton’s poem, but God persists in the face of all cleverness. God works on and on, revising his mysterious plan. Who are we, sweating in the garden, against his mysterious plan? My children are frightened; they weep and cannot stop. The Blue Angels turn, their afterburners light up, the air is aflutter with indifferent butterflies and deadly flowers wag their nectared heads. The garden shudders under the thrust of those great engines–– Blue Angels rising, disappearing, my sons waving sticks at the blue sky. 43 ...

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