A hole in the river –

“Si un ange tombait d’un nuage, laisserait-il un trou

Dans la rivière et le trou flotterait-il sans fin

Rempli des lettres silencieuses de chaque mot angélique?”

Billy Collins

*

A hole in the river, floating endlessly.

The river moves on, of course, and you

Along with it. But the hole never fills up.

And so you change, not out of choice but

Out of sheer necessity

No human can live in a bottomless hole

With no grounding underfoot.

*

The whole poem reads

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