Midges

86 | Jake Crist Invisible in shade they dizzy shafts Of sunlight the oaks let through, in funnel-­ lifts, Like blurred ether or scrambled oxygen. From afar they’re chimney smoke in columns; Or, miniaturized, Blake’s young sweepers Unlocked from their black coffins and leaping, Laughing, cavorting, sporting in the wind; Or a version of the tree denizened With angels Blake saw when he was nine. Annunciations happen all the time. Encounter plus a posture of consent: A messiah might hide in a second spent Open-­ eyed, inclined to occasion it. Then again, it might not, though a habit Of seraphic vigilance might well be It’s own reward. So might the shimmery Pillared cloud of a million mating flies That one instant overshadows you, then dies. poetry Midges Jake Crist ...