Tolstoy would have been touched
by the way that grandpa read it
every summer to us grandchildren
as we sprawled on the rug
in the livingroom of Phaleron
his summer home
a modest house on Marthas Vineyard
built in nineteen thirty-five
before the island was "discovered"
and things were relatively cheap
and he had work despite
the general hard times

It's the story of an angel
sent back to earth because
he couldn't bring himself to take
the life of a young mother
so that God had to dispatch
another less free-thinking angel
while this one learned
some basic lessons of
the human world

But even if the orphaned infants
went on to good and happy lives
I never found the story
with its message of a God
whose purpose was unknowable
whose ways were always
just and perfect
despite the reverence I felt
for my beloved grandfather
I never found the story
quite convincing