Old-young quiet spinster, sense-deranged with all due rigour, not unharmless.
Sometimes I sing songs that I don't like so that I can destroy them.
Please, make yourself at home!
The lowest angels sing the highest songs, the subtle art
of radio static and the shadows of eyelid aftercolours made piercing,
whispered gossip of the breeze-blown reeds in autumn, and the flat,
mocking shimmer of the starlight chanting distance.
The higher ones sing lower songs, all garish,
blunt as hammers.
Michael sings seven,
Raphael sings five,
and Gabriel the song of threes
but when He sings it will be the song of octaves,
whose dance is the loving kiss shared by a slave and the severed head of a king,
whose rhythm is the raindrop drumbeat of the sea as it meets the face of heaven.
High and low are of one essence, the circle
tightens to a point, and the trumpet,
casting its wondrous sound in tombs,
summons all before the throne.