This Poetry Wednesday, I thought it would be fitting to include poems from Sherman Alexie because I just reviewed his novel Flight.  I love it when authors cross over from poetry or fiction – often you can see the influences of fiction on their poetry and poetry in their fiction and this is certainly true of Alexie.  Alexie talked about the event that he describes in this poem during his interview with Nancy Pearl that I posted yesterday and I didn’t know he turned it into a poem until I tried to find a poem to post today.  I love it.

Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World

The morning air is all awash with angels…
Richard Wilbur

The eyes open to a blue telephone
In the bathroom of this five-star hotel.

I wonder whom I should call? A plumber,
Proctologist, urologist, or priest?

Who is most among us and most deserves
The first call? I choose my father because

He’s astounded by bathroom telephones.
I dial home. My mother answers. “Hey, Ma,

I say, “Can I talk to Poppa?” She gasps,
And then I remember that my father

Has been dead for nearly a year. “Shit, Mom,”
I say. “I forgot he’s dead. I’m sorry—

How did I forget?” “It’s okay,” she says.
“I made him a cup of instant coffee

This morning and left it on the table—
Like I have for, what, twenty-seven years—

And I didn’t realize my mistake
Until this afternoon.” My mother laughs

At the angels who wait for us to pause
During the most ordinary of days

And sing our praise to forgetfulness
Before they slap our souls with their cold wings.

Those angels burden and unbalance us.
Those fucking angels ride us piggyback.

Those angels, forever falling, snare us
And haul us, prey and praying, into dust.

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This poem is absolutely beautiful and full of grief.  But he expresses it so beautifully and simply.