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How Angels Sleep (Free verse) by Dovina

They roll and turn with minds confused to understand their earthly charge Angels have no pain or joy from which to learn the art of comfort. They know so very little how a woman feels with wounded knee or poison word. About an earthly hand below her rib— once a pleasure, now a scar— about this feeling, only theories can they bring. And for the missing manly snuggles, they tout prescriptions learned, obeying Teacher’s word, then listen while she grumbles. All their efforts leave her sobbing beside him on the bed, bewildered, while their platitudes roll on. But once an angel felt it briefly— the way to reach his charge’s heart. He lay beside her sleeping soundly, and she knew he understood.

zodiac 22-Aug-05/10:48 PM
re: "Nor"
Don't you really mean, "They know so very little [about] how a woman feels with wounded knee or poison word, [or about] an earthly hand below her rib"? I mean, you've basically just broken the list of things angels know little about into two sentences. Which is fine enough except the first item in the list starts with 'how', the second starts with 'about', and there's nothing immediately connecting them. It seems just as well to say, "They know so very little how a woman feels with wounded knee or poison word, or/nor an earthly hand below her rib." I don't see what the hand being real has to do with anything. Nor the "about this feeling" line.

Flipping through the Bible, I find angels saying "Go back to your mistress and submit to her" (Gn16:9), "Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here or you will be swept away when the city is punished" (Gn19:15), and "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God." (Lk1:19). If these are platitudes, they're news to me.

re: the last stanza
Even if you meant the last verse as a metaphor for a man (and isn't the whole poem a metaphor for a man????), it still means you've set up this great description of the nature of angels and then without explanation just changed it and made an angel/man do something totally against what we've understood as its nature. Without explanation or anything. And isn't the whole poem a metaphor for a man? Yes, it has to be. You can't write a whole poem about angels, make the angel in the last stanza a man, and not make us think about how the things you've said previously about angels relate to the metaphor-man. So, you've either got "Angels can't ever feel except this one just happened to feel once" or "Men can't ever feel except this one just happened to feel once" or both. Doesn't that strike you as a kind of silly (if, yes, sloppily gratifying) thing to say?

SOLUTIONS: Of course I'm not suggesting you make the woman sleep with an angel any more than the poem suggests she sleeps with an angel (metaphor or not). But you somehow HAVE to make the man/angel not really change its nature. YOU HAVE TO. The easiest answer is the man/angel DOESN'T really feel anything. Hey, that would be kind of like the reality of angels/men, too! Wouldn't that be cool?




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