Shimmering before my eyes most days now,
a vision that makes me both worried and hopeful,

I wonder: Is that the glaucoma? Oh, wait,
is that you, Helper? Nice of you to drop in.

I used to think of them as angels, but nowadays
you never know if that’s an acceptable term.

Even “heavenly being” might put them off, and
I’d hate to do that, showing up unexpectedly

as they do—in fat drops of rain plopping onto
the windshield, pearly and translucent, hanging

there for a weighty second before trailing down
the glass. Or in the pirouettes of leaf-twirl still

dancing groundward as I walk the neighborhood.
Or the unexpected cosmos, bright fuchsia, bouncing

tall on their long stems at the corner of my street.
How does that young woman gardener in her

floppy hat and knee-high wellies coax such color
out of winter? She’s angel-ing, for sure.

I’m pretty sure I don’t ask for divine assistance—
the angelics just show up. I’ve decided that

they always have, that my bones and eyes and
skin have at last become more porous, softened

so that I might detect the eternal glimmer and
see it for what it is: a constancy of care from

those seen and unseen, raining beams of love
down on us all, which we simply have to learn

to bear, if not embrace, as the great gifts they are.