September 29

(The Feast of the Archangels)

Every year on September 29
they gather.
Raphael brings the drinks,
while Michael and Gabriel
raid the pantry for caviar and taco chips.
They congregate in the fireside room,
spread the food on the table,
pull out the Parcheesi board,
and take off their shoes.
Then they sing.
They start with the old songs
—Psalm 100, the Magnificat,
“Behold, I bring good tidings”
(a favorite after all these years)—
work their way through Gregorian chants
and Martin Luther to New World
Yankee Doodle, Southern gospel,
and somewhere in the process
they sing Happy Birthday to me.
With voices like whales
or Arctic wolves,
strange, far, and wholly holy,
the archangels celebrate.
“Don’t be afraid,” they tell me.
Planets realign.
The juice of the sun flows free.