Angel Rolling the Heavens Together
Their wings beat the floor,
stirring the dust.
The hook in the fireplace trembles
and food spills on the flames.
The dining room rings with their chewing,
their gluttonous cries, their
rumbling bellies. Plates rattle on the table;
the human guests cannot enjoy the meal.
In all the bed chambers
angels cluster about
the dead. Fiercely breathing the
thick air, they lay eggs on the turning flesh.
Books scattered about the floor,
ladders climbing the walls,
the walls themselves full of books,
golden letters stamped on each spine,
the room is filled with words.
In each comer an angel writes and
as it writes it sings of each room in turn
praising each room's name.
The still parlor beckons the hours.
A sickle rusts in a corner propping a drowsy angel's arm.
Until something transpires the celebrants lounge on the
davenport, stand and sit again in turn. Suddenly, this
is the seventh of days, the hour of weaving and unraveling,
of lamplight swaying out of the lamp.
Over the ironwork
cranes fly and
and sing in the
tongueless creatures
the wind plays along
this is the seventh
tearing and making,
one side and opening
and over the nightwork
light on chimney pots
language of
the song
their wings, for
of days, moment of
of a door closing to
on the other.
Angel Rolling the Heavens Together
At the end of time this will happen: when
the souls of air, dust, stone, plants,
creatures and men stream toward the
gate and all the words and sounds
and letters signing sounds crown the sky,
when everything seeks gate and passage
through the sky, in a place of the
world, a point in air where no
one looked an angel appears. Other angels
surround him- some no bigger than fleas,
but white and whose wings beat loud
as thunder; some the size of men and
women, robust and smelling of work
and long flight; some big as
stars, showering the dark
sky with, threads of fight. One angel tears
the tongue from a man's mouth, another
buries living sinners in dust, a
third drops a ship on a court
yard filled with thieves. But this angel
does not move with the other angels
toward a distant point singing as
they fly. This angel will roll the heavens
together and so stands still, his eyes burning,
his jaws shut against the
strong and growing stink.
Skilled in knots and cloth, a sail maker or
one who coils baskets from plaited
straw, he begins to twist the
universe. He bends to his
knees and winds and furls the air. As he
winds he names God from the least name
to the most secret and when he says
the last the world becomes a snail shell,
the moon and sun at the rim, the
planets and stars clustered in
tight swirls at the center.
The angel enters the shell coiling
backward and comes out years
later where the snail would, horns on
his head, himself a snail now
who drags the heavens
slowly toward
the Lord.