Evening Angelus

I have forgotten the words, and therefore I shall not conceive of a mysterious salvation, I shall not become a tall lily and bloom into blue and white. Then what oracular event shall appear on my doorstep? What announcement shall crowd me to a corner, protesting an unworthiness, which doubtless shall be believed? But these are only bells we hear, pulled down by the arms of the drunken janitor, two fingers missing on his left hand. And we have climbed into that tower, its spiraling wooden staircase creaking beneath our feet. We have seen for ourselves that it is only iron that rings, iron swinging on an iron bar, the rough rope threading down to the cold ground, no death or holiness in those hollow shells.