Thursday, January 05, 2006

talk (or dance) amongst yourselves

I'll be away from Miami and this blog for a few days - in the meantime, here's a bit from a poem by Billy Collins, wondering why philosophers are so narrow-minded in their questions about angels:
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.

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