Angelitos Negros

Painters, why do you always paint white angels?
Paint beautiful black angels.

They are waiting with torches in the trees for you
Catch them, catch them.

Paint the ebony trunks, the huge limbs, the stormy hair
The laughter like a whale of shining wind.

Paint the crickets watching in a circle, and the tree frogs
Smelling rain in the air.

Paint the arms that can lift you to their shoulders
And run with you running running

Feeling her before you behind you behind you
In the hot darkness of summer.

She wants to do as the lions do in the meadows
The ditches the dark woods.

Paint the fires they watch, and the bright sail shapes
The cradle under bellowing trees.

Paint her head against the moon her arms behind her head
Her eyes immense like the eyes of an owl.

Paint her hair like fire, her eyes like points of fire
Running in the leaves, the woods

Paint the paradise where you've lived before, the first, the last,
That only paradise, the paradise that you've lost.

— William L. Bingham