Listen to Mary Oliver read "About Angels and About Trees" from the CD Many Miles:

About Angels And About Trees (Evidence) by Mary Oliver

About Angels and About Trees

Where do angels
fly in the firmament,

and how many can dance
on the head of a pin?

Well, I don’t care
about that pin dance,

what I know is that
they rest, sometimes,

in the tops of the trees

and you can see them,
or almost see them,

or, anyway, think: what a
wonderful idea.

I have lost as you and
others have possibly lost a

beloved one,
and wonder, where are they now?

The trees, anyway, are
miraculous, full of

angels (ideas); even
empty they are a

good place to look, to put
the heart at rest—all those

leaves breathing the air, so

peaceful and diligent, and certainly
ready to be

the resting place of
strange, winged creatures

that we, in this world, have loved.

Copyright @2009 by Mary Oliver. From Evidence: Poems, Beacon Press.