02.19.15  I was walking out on the north end of the lake a few days ago, during yet another stunning sun-filled afternoon.  In a month or so, this wildlife refuge area will be closed off until mid-July to protect nesting waterfowl.  The magnificent views are to my back in this photo–I have zillions of them–but I love the feeling in the trees which separate the lake from fields and housing developments.  There’s always some wind, and I since I am usually alone, the noises the trees make as they rub against each other are haunting.  The twisted shapes of the driftwood and fallen trees make it a place I would be spooked to be in after dark.  But, in the daylight, there are treasures to be found, like a thin piece of driftwood, twisted in a long curl–“mermaid’s hair”.

As I scanned the trees in the quiet of late afternoon, before the drama of a sky readying itself for its vivid sunset, I saw an angel.   I kept walking around, trying to take her photo from various angles.  Obviously, her head was a little strange, but the wings on her back were in sharp focus.  I listened a long time for any messages–I have a friend who is deeply in need of angels right now.  Nothing, but the rustle of worn branches and trunks moaning against each other.

When I downloaded the photos, I asked Don what he saw in the forest.  He said it was either a buffalo head or maybe a wildebeest.  “You don’t see an angel in there!?”  Even when I outlined the shape, he couldn’t see it.  There was no angel to be found.

It made me think of one of my favorite Billy Collin’s poems from his book “Questions About Angels.”  There is just so much we cannot know.

Questions About 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 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.