Subject
Re: Billy Collins' "Picnic, Lightning" (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. One also thinks of the angel, Mr. Engel, in VN's story "A
Busy Man."
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jay Livingston <LIVINGSTON@saturn.montclair.edu>
Billy Collins must have become the unofficial poet laureate of NPR. I heard him
several weeks ago on A Prairie Home Companion. Here are some excerpts from the
title poem of a recent book:
Questions About Angels
Of all theq uestion you might want to ask
about angels, the only one you ever hear
is how many can dance on the head of a pin.....
If an angel delivered the mail would he arrive
in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume
the appearnace of the regular mailman and
whistle up the driveway reading the postcards? . . . . .
It [the pin question] is designed to make us think in millions,
billions, to make us run out of nubmers 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.
* * * * *
It was that mailman I was interested in--perhaps he will remind readers
here of the one in Despair--but I couldn't resist typing the two final stanzas
as well.
Jay Livingston
Busy Man."
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jay Livingston <LIVINGSTON@saturn.montclair.edu>
Billy Collins must have become the unofficial poet laureate of NPR. I heard him
several weeks ago on A Prairie Home Companion. Here are some excerpts from the
title poem of a recent book:
Questions About Angels
Of all theq uestion you might want to ask
about angels, the only one you ever hear
is how many can dance on the head of a pin.....
If an angel delivered the mail would he arrive
in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume
the appearnace of the regular mailman and
whistle up the driveway reading the postcards? . . . . .
It [the pin question] is designed to make us think in millions,
billions, to make us run out of nubmers 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.
* * * * *
It was that mailman I was interested in--perhaps he will remind readers
here of the one in Despair--but I couldn't resist typing the two final stanzas
as well.
Jay Livingston