A shot down angel

I first read this poem when I was at school, and although enigmatic, it still remains a favourite of mine, by a favourite poet, Charles Causley.

Charles was born in 1917, to Laura Bartlett and Charles Causley who tragically died in 1925 of wounds he’d sustained during the First World War.Interestingly, Charles senior was born in Canada, although none of his brothers and sisters as far as I can tell, not his parents were born there. Why did they go? Was it a visit, were they seeking work? Who knows?

Charles the poet never married and when he died he was buried next to his mother. Here is Charles’s poem:

I saw a shot down angel

I saw a shot down angel in the park
His marble blood sluicing the dyke of death,
A sailing tree fired its brown sea-mark
Where he now wintered for his wounded breath.

I heard the bird-noise of his splintered wings
Sawing the steep sierra of the sky,
On his fixed brow the jewel of the Kings
Reeked the red morning with a staring eye.

I stretched my hand to hold him from the heat,
I fetched a cloth to bind him where he bled,
I brought a bowl to wash his golden feet,
I shone my shield to save him from the dead.

My angel spat my solace in my face
And fired my fingers with his burning shawl,
Crawling in blood and silver to a place
Where he could turn his torture to the wall.

Alone I wandered in the sneaking snow
The signature of murder on my day,
And from the gallows-tree, a careful crow
Hitched its appalling wings and flew away.