A QUESTION OF ANGELS

by Billy Collins

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 colours? 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. This was the first Collins' poem I wanted to learn, although I think in the end I learnt One Life to Live first.   This is Collins at his most irresistible - the theological question has always been absurd; he takes it to the limit.  The lack of imagination in the question sends him off into a wild imagination and even to a moment of surrealism in the lines about the angel falling off a cloud.   And the end of the poem is just wonderful; not only the conclusion that one angel is sufficient for anyone, but the fact that she has a jazz combo accompanying her eternal dance sweeps you off into heaven itself. You can read more about the Angels/Dance/Pin debate here.    There is a short story on the subject here. Return to the Index - Go to the Main Page