The story, in my eyes, holds an evident truth about how we sometimes (more so than not) have this idea of great, blissful entities having to be in perfect and angelic form.  All that glitters isn't gold, as the saying goes.  This old, feeble man with enormous wings is of great despair and disrepair for a great deal of time in the story, and sought upon as an almost kind of "anti christ" circus animal.  Like the song, "What if God were one of us", would we shun and gawk at a being of holiness and truth?  The greatest of miracles can shine through in the most strangest of ways, we just have to choose whether or not we see the light.  And too, this man, feeble and as broken down as he appeared to be, all the while had the ENORMOUS wings.  Those wings were potential and hope.  Hopes that one day soon he wouldn't be grounded and placed into a cynical category designed by judgmental humans, but forever fly in a kingdom of angels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_5U0M9ErGA