I was visited by an angel

  that sunny afternoon in May

Amid sun-speckled shade

  lying head-in-lap with my lover

  on a park bench beneath the ripening Spring

    of our youth

Her name was Emily

  - the angel, not my lover -

  and she lived in the dorm

    behind Dartmouth Hall

It was Spring, of course

  and suddenly

The air was filled with cherry blossoms

A gentle snowburst of velvet white

  showering down upon our heads

Amid the green

And Emily was dancing around us,

  singing an ode to love

    and to the young lovers

      which we yet were

And then, as quickly, she was gone -

  or going, at the very least

Having delivered her message,

  her psalm

    Waking in us the realization

      of how good, at this very moment,

      it was to be us

      Right Now

She descended to earth and resumed

  her merely mortal task

  of getting to class on time

The Hebrew makes no distinction: 

  mal'akh is messenger

  and mal'akh is angel

The two were the same to our fathers

Until now, when so many wait,

  brushing aside messages of love

    from those who hold them dear

While waiting for an angel to bring them a sign

It brings me to tears

But even so, I am drawn

  to park benches

Where weary mothers rest while their children run

Where old couples wait

  in each other's quiet company

Remembering springtime

  and cherry blossoms of their own

Where the street-sullied man

  whose dreams have been reduced

    for now

  to three carrier bags

    and a cockeyed grocery cart

Where he nurses his soul

  and asks "What now?"

I can't help it - I am drawn

These are sacred spaces

Like my own Mount Moriah where,

  anointed in cherry blossoms,

I was visited by an angel

  to renew my faith