Questions About Angels

Painting by Matthias Grunewald 1515


Questions About Angels


Of all the questions you might
want to ask about angels,
the only one you ever hear
is how many can dance
on the head of a pin.

No curiosity about how they pass the
eternal time besides circling
the Throne chanting in Latin
or delivering a crust of bread
to a hermit on earth
or guiding a boy and girl
across a rickety wooden bridge.

Do they fly through God's body
and come out singing?
Do they swing like children
from the hinges of the spirit world
saying their names
backwards and forwards?
Do they sit alone
in little gardens changing colors?

What about their sleeping habits,
the fabric of their robes,
their diet of unfiltered divine light?
What goes on inside their luminous heads?
Is there a wall these tall presences
can look over and see hell?

If an angel fell off a cloud,
would he leave a hole
in a river and would the hole float
along endlessly filled with the silent
letters of every angelic word?

If an angel delivered the mail,
would he arrive in a blinding rush
of wings or would he just assume
the appearance of the regular mailman
and whistle up the driveway
reading the postcards?

No, the medieval theologians
control the court.
The only question you ever hear
is about the little dance floor
on the head of a pin
where halos are meant
to converge and drift invisibly.

It is designed
to make us think in millions,
billions, to make us run out of numbers
and collapse into infinity,
but perhaps the answer is simply one:
one female angel dancing alone
in her stocking feet,
a small jazz combo working
in the background.

She sways like a branch in the wind,
her beautiful eyes closed,
and the tall thin bassist leans over
to glance at his watch
because she has been dancing
forever, and now it is very late,
even for musicians.


Billy Collins

Posted over on Poetry Foundation