Not angels, but pale travelers
          through time, come back
Not to condemn or to reverse
          our narrow acts, 

But to remind us, by their soft
          disclosures, what
Is still to come. Yet drifted, off
          the mark, no thought 

Of their long journey now. They cast
         about within
This fallen world not for what lasts,
         but what begins. 

 

 

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Jared Carter’s most recent book of poems, The Land Itself, is from Monongahela Books in Morgantown, West Virginia. He lives in Indiana.